Fascist tomos and crisis theology: Rubio's attempt to purify Trump's history

Marco Rubio's speech in Athens should not be considered merely a cultural praise of ancient Greece, a civilizational challenge between East and West, or, like Trump, a rant against the great civilization of ancient Iran; The importance of the speech lies elsewhere: in transforming a philosophical concept - Thumos - into the political language of contemporary naked power.

Ambassador Arjan-Rubio says Tomos, "the fire of passion, power, courage and pride", is the heart of great civilizations; And warns that the West has lost this quality. Then he talks about: the shame of the West from its past, the decline of nationalism, the opening of borders, the weakening of armies, the handing over of sovereignty and the taking power of rivals; And finally, it presents the West with a historic choice, "return to power or accept decline."

This connection is not accidental. Rubio moves Tomos from Athens to Washington. But right in this transition, the philosophical question begins:

Is the Tomos of Athens what American power politics wants to make of it today?

Plato's answer is negative. In the Republic, tomos is neither synonymous with violence nor another name for the will to rule. Tomos is one of the three aspects of the soul; A force associated with courage, dignity, moral outrage, and the defense of what is deemed valuable. That in the just soul, Tomos must be the ally of reason (Logos), not its substitute. Intellect must rule and Tomos must be the force of execution of that rule. Even anger in this device can be anger against injustice. Therefore, the problem is not the Tomos itself; The problem is "separating Thomos from Logos and Justice".

Trump crossing the border of language and entering the logic of "Agamben" and the action of "Hitler"

Trump's words and actions in the last two years, especially focusing on forced immigration policies, systematic naked violence, spreading racial hatred and the uncontrollable desire for dictatorship and the dissolution of democratic institutions, have crossed the border of conventional bourgeois politics and can be analyzed within the framework of Agamben's concepts, especially the logic of "state of emergency" and "nakedness of life" (Homo Sacer); The logic that Hitler had turned into the perfection of the killing and elimination machine in the Third Reich.

When the actions and words of a political leader turn into systematic criminalization, dehumanization and justification of crimes against humanity, no classical political theory can digest and legitimize it. This is precisely the point where politics becomes a "theology of death".

So the biggest error in Rubio's reading of Athens is perhaps this: he wants Thomos, but without that part of Athens that restrains and judges Thomos. Unaware that Athens was not just the city of Tomos; It was also the city of Logos. Where Socrates does not ask the Athenians how to fight more and more violently and criminally; You ask what they live for, what is justice, what is virtue, and what is the value of power without justice. Socrates did not allow power to exempt himself from the question of justice. Plato finally shows that when ignorance and the irrational part dominates the intellect, the result is not justice, but the disorder of the soul and the city.

Therefore, when we enter the horrible proposition of Trumpism and its hidden connection with the heavy shadow of historical fascism, that is, Hitler, into this equation, the text of Rubio's speech in Athens takes on a completely different face, more critical and at the same time more naked. From this point of view, Rubio's speech in Athens functions as an ideological effort to legitimize a civilization to a criminal power that can no longer be justified in the form of democratic logic:

The project of philosophizing and civilizing for crimes that can no longer be justified in the form of democratic logic.

Rubio's Historical Task: From Terrestrial Fascism to Athenian Demythology

Due to the destructive, chaotic and naked nature of his behavioral and verbal violence, Trump faces the risk of being portrayed as a "modern fascist dictator" - on par with Hitler and Mussolini - in world history; A critical point in which Marco Rubio's role as an overreached ideologue is defined.

What is Rubio's philosophical and discursive task at this critical point? If we read this speech from the point of view of its discursive function, we can say that Rubio is trying to pull this "fascist thumos" (Thumos), which has its roots in trans-humanism, primitive racist anger, the will to kill and eliminate, and Trumpian autocracy, from the mire of fascist politics of the 20th century and put it in the marble cylinders of "ancient Athens" and Acropolis baptize!

Rubio attempts to translate Trump's violent tomos from a fascist pathology to a "classical virtue of civilization."

Referring to Xerxes and the Iran-Greece wars in this puzzle, from the perspective of this reading, is a rhetorical trick: if Xerxes is "another enemy", then any amount of violence, wall-building, repression and cruelty that Trump applies to "preserve Western civilization" is not a fascist crime, but the necessary continuation of the same ancient saga of defending the West. In this reading, history is transformed from a complex reality into a simplified mythic narrative:

Rubio reduces history to a mythic narrative to make the fascist Trump a "tragic hero defending civilization."

Tomos without logos in the scales of history: fascism equipped with technology

This is where the link between Trump's philosophy and bare reality is complete. Because in the 20th century, Hitler hid his violence behind the ideology of the superior race and the industrial machine of the camps; The contemporary Trump - whose discourse is a reproduction of the same naked fascist tomos - is equipped with a cover of "the philosophical heritage of the West" by agents like Rubio.

When crimes and killings exceed the limits of rational justification, philosophy serves the continuation of crimes and the establishment of the "big lie".

Nevertheless, Rubio cannot justify Trump's fascist crimes, behavior and words with the Socratic logic of "questioning justice"; Because Socrates stood against such violence and autocracy and took the poisoned cup. That is why Rubio has to eliminate Socrates and only hold on to the "Sword of Athens" and "Pride of the Acropolis". He slaughters logos (intellect, questioning, ethics, and human logic) to leave only thomas (anger, malice, the desire to conquer and eliminate the other).

Conclusion: Forging the name of civilization to cover fascism

This speech, in continuation of previous philosophies, is a "theological-political manipulation" and an ideological project to legitimize the emerging fascism of America on the verge of its moral collapse. By reviving the word "Tomos" and faithfully reconstructing ancient history, Rubio seeks not to discover the truth of Athens, but to build a marble mask to hide the "bareest form of brute power, primitive rage, and unbridled violence of Trumpism." He uses history as a weapon, turns the Acropolis into a fortress, and slaughters philosophy in military bases and the will of domination to show that when a great power loses the ability to rationally justify its behavior (Logos), it has no choice but to take refuge in mythmaking, blind rage, and sanctification of naked violence. In addition, Rubio's attempt to explain the Athenian-philosophical Trumpian Tomos finally reveals a horrible truth; That:

In the face of the crisis of its internal decay, the contemporary Trumpian America is forced to take refuge in the "myth of ancient violence" in order to avoid accepting its moral fall into the abyss of naked fascism.

But no marble cover from ancient Athens, and no rhetorical tricks from Rubio can cover the truth of this tragedy; Because:

A civilization that, in order to prove its survival, is forced to purify the crimes and fascist tomos of its leaders today in: trampling Logos, petitioning the Acropolis gatekeepers, distorting the narrative of the battles of Xerxes after the Greek attack on Sardis, and purifying the self-Christ, before it is destroyed by the hands of foreign actors, has collapsed into the fundamental lie within itself.