A lot of media sources are pointing to similarities between Trump’s America and Hitler’s Germany. Here’s a different take: compare Trump’s America to Cambodia’s Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge auto-genocide.
Victims of the ‘Killing Fields’. Coming to America?
Most historians agree that the horrendous Khmer Rouge phenomenon was caused by resentment of rural people towards city folk. Their anger grew so huge that they declared war on the city dwellers. Recall that the KR drove all the inhabitants of Phnom Penh into the countryside, where they were slaughtered mercilessly. About 2 million deaths, at best estimates.
The cities had been receiving all the foreign aid; education was found in cities only; the government in PP was seen as impossibly corrupt. The rage of the neglected rural population led to the widespread massacre of the elite. The ‘libs’ you might call them. Or maybe ‘woke’.
Look at recent elections in the US: it’s mostly rural versus urban. Even in solidly red states, the cities vote Democratic. The small villagers in rural US see the elite libs in the cities as taking all the benefits, including education and the spoils of corruption. They are mad as hell, and they elected Donald Trump to give the middle finger to the city elites (even though he is one of them). And by the way, Saloth Sar – alias Pol Pot – also belonged to the elite and studied in Paris.
The Trumpies therefore love to see cruelty, as a way to vent their own anger. They get a vicarious kick out of seeing masked ICE thugs dragging mothers and children out of apartments in the middle of the night. They love torture in concentration camps with inhumane conditions like Alligator Auschwitz.
The KR hated education. Anyone who could read, or even anyone wearing eyeglasses, was summarily executed. The US is going down the anti-education, anti-intellectual road. Elite universities are targeted; medical research is curtailed; and incompetent White House appointees are selected with the lowest possible qualifications. Trump is dismantling the Department of Education. His rural backers will love that. Where is this leading?
Even the slogan MAGA hearkens back to the KR’s vision of re-creating the glories of the ancient Angkorian empire. Pol Pot’s slogan could easily have been “Make Cambodia Great Again.”
But watch out! Rural anger could get so out of control, there could be civil war between the cities and countryside. Maybe Trump has already started that war with his military takeover of cities. It could get really ugly and nasty. Trump is promoting violence, to the extent that his critics are receiving death threats and some, like Nancy Pelosi’s husband, have actually been attacked. Attackers are either not prosecuted or else pardoned, so they know they can get away with all sorts of violent acts. I can only see this trend as increasing. Rural rage is not rational or logical; strong emotions can lead to unpredictable behavior. Who could have predicted what happened in Cambodia?