Is Trump Feeding a Hunger for Authoritarianism?

By Rod Anderson, CP Cartoonist Thursday, March 10, 2016

Many Americans are in search of an authoritarian rather than a president.

The hunger for authoritarianism is the outcome of an age of chaos and political uncertainty. For some, the modern presidency peaked in Ronald Reagan, then slid into a visionless flatland in George H.W. Bush, plunged into a nettled wilderness in Bill Clinton, galloped off into wild-west adventurism in George W. Bush, and finally foundered in the doldrums in Barack Obama.

Enter Donald Trump, the man who says he can fix it all. The New York billionaire, real estate mogul, casino impresario, and Barnum-esque orator, has spewed up like hot magma and poured out across the political landscape, setting things ablaze.

As the Icelandic landmass thunderously testifies, glaciers are born of fire. Down in earth's depths the cauldron burns, and gushes fiery rivers of lava into the coldness of the far north. Eventually the lava hardens into rock. The bitter cold takes over and heaves up an island that calves glaciers.

The 1960s Cultural Revolution was the fiery upheaval that ultimately hardened into the glacial authoritarianism of the PC movement of our time. Many American campuses reveal the hunger for PC authoritarianism. Students must have safe places where ideas are prohibited that might shatter their presuppositions and shake their pet ideologies. Trigger warnings must alert young minds of potential threats to their cherished myths. Open-mindedness, free inquiry and speech have been frozen out by student and professorial mobs and their determination to chill debate.