Hey Jeff,

Thanks for your response. I can see you have a bit of bee in your bonnet about human nature, but what you mean by human nature, and what I mean might be very different animals...so defining your terms is always helpful. For my part, if you read Part Two (I think it is) of this series I deal very much with some of the psychological aspects of Trump's disinhibition and what makes him, the good and the bad, the politician he is...but I also look at the psychology of what attracts people to him and movements like his. So, I think human nature has been covered. Tick! ✅

And you're right, I didn't give examples of groups that Trump had hurt first time round, but then that was never the point of this essay...but if you want one off the top of my head, then think about the people he hurt and likely killed with his dumbass comments about drinking bleach to counteract Covid!!

Colonialism, my friend, wasn't committed by one group...it was committed by many and is still being done so by the Israeli's today. To say that since we've become more civilised that such atrocities no longer occur is to flagrantly ignore the facts. Just look the Holocaust for evidence of this...or if you think we've become more civilised since then, then try Vietnam, or Iraq...or perhaps you meant that we've civilised ourselves in the last five minutes since Israel dropped its last bomb on the tented camps of women and children in Palestine!! And if you seriously think Africans are to blame for the 12.5 million people shipped across the Atlantic to the Americas then you really need to read some more books my friend! Yes, there were probably a handful of complicit tribal chiefs, but trying to blame them for the slave trade is just beyond ridiculous I'm afraid.

As for your comments about Cesaire; his Discourse was published in 1972, and Dawkins - who I've met - published the Selfish Gene in 1976...so temporally there is no overlap. But, and bearing in mind I was trained as a Zoologist and taught Genetics at degree level (albeit a long time ago), Dawkins theories, are now largely discredited and have been taken over by more up to date and wide ranging genetic theories about which there is insufficient space here to elucidate. But also, theories of the origins of fascism and human genetics do not really meet at any point. Any one individuals contribution for, or against a mass movement such as fascism, is not likely to be affected by their genome...there is no fascist gene that I'm aware of...and, as such, their contribution is far more likely to be influenced by their environment than by anything else. Perhaps to illustrate the point, think about Mussolini; the original fascist, who began his political life as an avowed socialist, like his father. As a young man he was the first editor of the leftwing socialist publication, Avanti! in Italy. Circumstances and opportunities arose that led him to believe he could gain more power and wealth on the rightwing of politics...which would, by your calculation, mean he would have to change his genes...again, something that even with gene therapy is just not going to happen...but he changed anyway, starting, among other things, his own rightwing publication, Il Popolo d'Italia, which he ran as a rival to Avanti!

There's a reason people don't try to link politics to genetics...and that is because, as far we know, there is no linkage. If however, you have some insight that the world of genetic science has been missing then maybe you should be writing a book!

And as for growing up...I think I've pretty much done that mate...telling someone of my advanced years to grow up is fatuous, disrespectful and, to my mind, just plain rude, so I dismiss that comment...and if you think taking fascism out of the equation with respect to Trump is a valid argument, then I suggest you try reading every part of this series if you think there's nothing to say on this. There is plenty to say, and just ignoring it on your say so my friend because of some vague allusion to human nature that is not made clear, is just not going to happen.

You need to bear in mind that not every single aspect of a subject can ever be covered in any single essay...that's why we add titles and subtitles to delineate the areas we are going to discuss.

Thanks for your comments as always. My replies are meant to be constructive and not destructive, and I hope you can take them in that spirit. Have a great weekend.

Peter