If Trump is a fascist, then what are his followers? The Supreme Court rejected outright a foolish suit brought by Texas to try to get the four states that were responsible mostly for putting Biden over the top, and decisively , to throw out their votes. However, 125 GOP representatives and GOP secretaries of state signed on or supported the suit. Using the word "fascism" is inflammatory because it brings up images of Hitler. However, whatever you call fascism or defines it, the American brand so far only has a few strutting, torch carrying, gun toting Hitler types. There are common characteristics, however, that should give us pause and think there is some reason to call the political movement supporting him is fascist like. In an op ed from the Beast, a writer hit some true notes. " Here are five essential ones, though there are others: blind loyalty to a leader who’s really more of a national father figure; belief that the leader is the state; belief that opposition to the leader is opposition to the state, and thus treason; conviction (instilled or ignited by the leader) that the source of the problems facing the good wholesome ethnic majority is some Other or collection of Others who must be ostracized if not banished; agreement that the rules and constraints of democratic order are sometimes useful and should be obeyed as long as one can obey them and win, because doing so confers a certain legitimacy, but if they have to be cast aside to hold power, then cast aside they must be. These principles animate every fascist regime in human history. They are at the heart of Trumpism, and they have drawn many more adherents than I’d have thought possible in this country." Trump Just Broke Through the Last Level of Neo-Fascism (yahoo.com)
Fascism is not in the future: it is here now. If it looks like a duck, waddles like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is a duck..Trump is looking like a fascist, acting like one, and speaking like one. In an epic quack,, Trump recently threatened to sen 75,000 federal agents into cities to "bring law and order" and says many times he wants the feds to "dominate the streets". Action speaks louder than words. . Trump is now the provocateur in chief, creating violence so he can tell in followers he can cure violence. It provides great photo ops and stories on FOX as he tries to scare those wavering support of him that he is the law and order president to save them from the violence he has provoked. Law and order .means to him he creates the disorder and violates the law to save people from the disorder he provoked. He deserves that designation because he s mimicking strategies fascists of the 1930s used to gain and keep power. Masha Gessen, author of "Surviving Autocracy" concluded that Trump is acting fascism. In 2018, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright sounded the alarm on fascism, not that she was ready to call Trump a fascist, there were some warning signs, especially his belief he was above the law. https://www.pri.org/stories/2018-04-25/madeleine-albright-thinks-its-time-set-alarm-fascism. She wrote that before Trump sent his federal secret forces into Lafayette Square and Portland, Oregon.
Anne Applebaum writing in the Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/trump-putting-show-portland/614521/ "The president is deploying the kind of performative authoritarianism that Vladimir Putin pioneered."
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/23/politics/trump-federal-agents-us-cities/index.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/06/02/despite-mcenanys-pushback-trump-makes-it-abundantly-clear-what-he-means-by-dominate/
I write this with reluctance because accusing someone of being fascist is inflammatory. and immediately comes to mind Hitler and the Nazis. The more polite term media has settled on is authoritarianism. It is a philosophical word that means something similar to the practice of fascism and communist dictatorships. Karen Stenner, the author of “The Authoritarian Dynamic,” described as what we are facing with Trump is not a fight conducted by the conservative right but it is coming from another animal: authoritarianism. I am relating her term to a familiar historical reference, fascism. Fascism is one manifestation of authoritarianism as practiced by fascists of the 1930s. However, authoritarianism can also describe the dictatorial rule of Stalin. Another term in the '30s and '40s that has been used by critics of the fascists is totalitarianism which is the most extreme form of authoritarianism that governs and demands conformity of every aspect of civil life. Stenner penned an email to columnist Tom Edsell witing on the issue to make the case that democracy is under threat by authoritarians, not conservatives.:
A strategy used by Hitler is similar to one Trump in Portland, OR. Both fomented the civil strife they claimed they could fix. Hitler sent his brown shirts out to foment street demonstrations and burned down the Reichstag so he could claim he could bring order to Germany. The strategy worked. Gessen, on MSNBC Friday, July 24, 2020, reminded us that Fascism in Germany took as many as 6 years to mature into the horror we associated with it. The point is that it is a gradual takeover and it started step by step. Gessen concluded that Trump is acting fascism, whether he or his followers realize it. Mussolini had another description of the process: To paraphrase If you pluck one chicken feather at a time, it times before the chicken realizes it is nearly bald.
As Gessen pointed out so far only a third of Americans are approving of Trump's more extreme actions. Hitler in 1932 series of presidential elections and control of the parliament got around 33-37% of the popular vote before he seized power in 1933. He used parliamentary coalitions to gain great control. The US does not have a parliamentary system and there are checks and balances still in effect and are being exercised, mostly through the courts, since the Senate GOP members are complacent, compliant or complicit or are loyal to him or afraid of him...What is eerily similar though is that the size of Hitler's hardcore base percentage in elections in 1932 is similar to Trump's base percentage of the electorate in 2020.
Not only is Donald Trump contending he is above the US law, he says he is above the law and the World Court governing crimes against humanity. Having known victims, including relatives, of war crimes conducted by those in the 1990's Balkan wars (of ethnic cleansing) I well aware of war crimes conducted there and I followed the international prosecution that brought those who committed the mass killings was made possible by the World Court. I have been in Courtroom 600 in Nuremberg and listened to a docent recount much of what went on and the results there. The ghosts of Hitler the demagogue addressing the masses of uninformed Heil Hitler saluting him haunted me when I visited the Nuremberg stadium where one of his largest rallies took place. It reminded me of how vulnerable humanity can be inspired to violating the standards of civilization when actions are motivated by hate and lust for power. There is a reason that the largest demographic of voters supporting Trump are those with no college education. They have either forgotten what they learned in whatever education they had or do not see the parallel of Trump to the early rise of fascism in the 1930s. Having lived and studied in Germany 12 years after the end of World War II and married a refugee from Communist Yugoslavia, inhumane totalitarian governments are to be prevented and nipped in the bud whether their dictators ride their rise to power on the wings of left or right ideology.
https://billmoyers.com/story/nuremberg-prosecutors-warning-about-trumps-war-on-the-rule-of-law/
An update 7/4/2020 and 7/23/2020 The fact that Trump is trying to call demonstrations left-wing fascism shows how defensive he is to being called a fascist himself
Continuing the 6/ 4/2020 posting.
I wrote the blog posting below one month into the Trump administration...February 2017. It was my reason for not calling Trump a fascist. Name-calling and using the word fascism and Trump in the same breath is admittedly inflammatory and I stated why I did not call him a fascist then and why he did not yet fit the definition.
Here is why I am using it now 1. In three and a half years his racism and appeal to white nationalism is not subtle. It was not a show business device. His view of Justice is not equally applied or color blind and he uses racism to feather his political nest, divide and conquer 2. Hoodwinking US military officials into intervening to promote his political agenda 3. Calling all demonstrators, peaceful and violent, thugs to be dominated by force and oppression. 4. Willful ignorance of Constitutional constraints on the executive's power and protections of peaceful demonstrations. Update: 7/9/2020: No, Mr. President. You are not a king or a dictator. This is the most important part of the 7-2 Supreme Court decision yesterday. President Trump had asserted he could not be investigated or charged with a crime as president: The rule of law and Trump's compliance was upheld. Being the president did not give him special immunity. He had absolute immunity in criminal matters, he claimed. He did not have to comply with subpoenas in criminal matters from grand juries. No, said the court. He does not. He has the rights of any ordinary citizens and he had to respond to subpoenas in criminal cases, even if issued by State or Federal prosecutors. The checks and balances on presidential power held. The President was not above the law, though the president had claimed he was. This confirms the basic tenant of the Constitution and it was upheld by even Trump's recent appointees, Justices Kavanaugh and Gorsuch. The political impact is that we will not get the President's tax returns before November. The Congressional subpoena of Trump's financial records issued for legislative oversight reasons was also sent back to the lower courts. The New York state case regarding tax returns was sent back to the grand jury process. The grand jury process is secret unless there is an indictment resulting in a trial, and the other concerning Congress oversight was sent back to narrow the scope of the subpoena. Congress had the power over the executive branch of oversight was untouched. It does.. The reason for the New York case was to see if Trump committed a tax crime in the Stormy Daniels and Michael Cohen payoff case. Congress wanted to see if financial crimes were involved, with an underlying suspicion that Russia had something on Trump that explained why he kowtowed to Putin in so many matters. https://www.newsweek.com/colin-powell-donald-trump-america-we-people-madeleine-albright-constitution-1157119?fbclid=IwAR18fW3EczffZLXVdiTCPKZeJ8cgMePJ_cFfqsChsetAkhFAZDy--ma3xbk5. Announcing his intent to use US military against our own civilians. These put him firmly in the ranks of the 1930's fascists.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/05/89-former-defense-officials-military-must-never-be-used-violate-constitutional-rights/?fbclid=IwAR2AS7HM5YZ26ckmSfGJ-LhFWlTLq7IowLWt_L6wBgWeahQSNchkK8qNFf4
Some intellectual roots of the Tea Party and racist movements of the Trump era may be found in the following:https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/meet-the-economist-behind-the-one-percents-stealth-takeover-of-america The phrase that curled my hair was that once oligarchs take over, a stronger government was needed to put down a populist revolt.
One of the most damning comments about what would happen in a Trump second term would be the end of democracy..and this came from a respected Republican, William Cohen: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/amanpour-and-company/video/former-secretary-of-defense-william-cohen-on-the-election/?fbclid=IwAR0YyjwgZnoApMxPPIuPKCqDTLirv6DKa_FQsA536J5YEDoysWXuHW4cWFo
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: I guess, you know, you’ve been on the cutting edge of foreign policy for so long. What do you see and what do you expect if there was to be a second Trump administration?
Updated blog posting: Feb. 17-25 2017
I have refrained from calling the Trump administration fascist. It is not there yet. It is too early to tell and the constraints of law and the Constitution may keep President Trump from putting some of his innate tendencies into practice. However, every day it seems Trump's actions resemble even more the examples of fascism as practiced in the 20th century.
The definition of fascism as a philosophy is complex, but actions can be the definer, too. Calling someone fascist brings to mind Hitler, the gas chambers, the hyper-nationalism, the rallies and parades, and a goal of economic recovery based on ramping up the military/industrial complex, blaming and scapegoating minorities, and feeding on the emotions of those who hate "others". Hitler seems to personify it in many minds, though the 20th-century ideological roots are actually in Italy and Mussolini and not all authoritarian governments are fascist.
While President Trump certainly does not fit the extreme Hitler mold, there are some similar elements to the rise of fascism in Europe found in Trump's tweets and orders and techniques, such as holding rallies to whip up supporters' enthusiasm and hyper-nationalism, exaggerating potential external security threats and the weakness of our military, and the failure of an economy,. He is ignoring the fact that the economy has the lowest unemployment rate since 2009 and had a pre-election robust Wall Street. True, the blue-collar middle class has been left behind. Whatever Trump advocates, the US in 2017 is nowhere like Germany in the early '30s that was decimated by reparations and the Depression.
With crowd-pleasing rhetoric and tweets, Trump claims the only facts that are not fake are those considered true by the Trump administration. He verbally delegitimizes other centers of power, courts, and their judges, and media. Stephen Bannon is the president's most trusted and closest adviser and is also an example of the hatred factor found in fascism. Bannon had been CEO of Breitbart, the media public platform for white supremacists and ultra-nationalists. Leading to Trump's own rise on the political scene was "Obama was born in Kenya" birtherism crusade, considered by many to be dog whistles to racists. Whether or not Bannon and he are racists and bigots themselves is the lesser issue. Like Bannon Trump tolerates and exploits racism for political gain, even being reluctant to condemn bigotry until forced to. His Muslim ban obviously appeals to religious bigots. Pressed for weeks to condemn Jewish cemetery vandalism and threats against religious centers, he finally made a statement last week condemning anti-Semitism.
These last couple of weeks of his media relations were particularly disturbing and brought him a step closer to qualifying as at least a wannabe fascist. Looking at how the fascist movement got into power in the last century, we can see some similarities. One is an attempt to bully and control the press and to take over the messaging. Trump is beginning the process by excluding "opposition" outlets. CNN and the New York Times were kept from the press "gaggle"at a non-televised briefing at the White House and Trump and his spokespeople have refused to call on reporters who represented media promoting stories critical of him. These were obvious attempts at "punishing" CNN and the Times. Their sin: reporting on Trump's possible even closer relationship with Russians during the campaign. (Added June, 2020. John Bolton's tell all book, Trump called journalists scumbags that should be executied;https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/503244-bolton-claims-trump-called-for-scumbag-journalists-to-be-executed)
The most serious media-related event raised the question of whether his administration had tried to influence the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign's colluding with the Russians. One version reported by the media was that Reince Priebus, Trump's chief of staff, had approached the FBI director asking him to tamp down a report being leaked from the agency as flawed because there was no evidence any Russian contact involved Russian agents. The Trump administration did not deny the contact had been made with Russians, but said it was not their agents, and counterclaimed that the FBI director had approached Priebus. If the latter is true, then the FBI's impartiality and credibility in their Russian related investigations into Russian hacking and meddling in the 2016 elections are jeopardized. If the administration initiated the contact with the FBI, then they are verging on a Nixon-like cover-up and look guilty that there is a fire in the smoke. Adding to suspicions that there is something there there, as many have noted, Trump has never flatly denied that contact with Russians and his campaign staff occurred but instead has tried to deflect attention to "illegal leaks", as a way to direct public attention and media focus elsewhere and a way to scotch deeper probes.
Either way, the exchange with the FBI flap is not good news for the Trump administration. In that dust-up, what has been clear is that the Trump administration is fearful that the FBI or the other investigations being conducted by intelligence agencies will find the smoking gun of collusion with Russian agents. If that collusion turns out to be sanctioned or conducted by Donald Trump himself or others in his campaign acting under his direction, that could lead to impeachment at worse or destroying the credibility, legitimacy, and effectiveness of the administration at best. The stakes are very high.
.Populism has also been an element in the rise of fascism. Candidate Trump's appeal to the blue-collar working demographic was more populist than corporate. Ironically, a corporatist element has been added to Trump's presidential administration with the appointment of the team of billionaires to the various cabinet posts. These cabinet officers have been charged to de-construct their departments, eliminating consumer and environmental protections that were designed to protect the middle class from corporate excesses.
The populist rationale Trump has pitched to the public is that this pro-business, anti-environment/consumer approach will lead to high paying job creation in the rust belt and national economic growth. Those most affected by economic struggles are without a college education and robotics have replaced many of those jobs once held by human beings. Some blame unions, too, for holding back efficiencies. Trump has not provided any plan to fix those problems but instead has blamed bad trade policies. Whether protectionism will result in high paying jobs with a workforce ill-equipped to fill them or reduce robotics is doubtful. If proof of Russian collusion does not lead to his defeat in 2020, his failure to provide promised economic growth and high paying job creation will. As counties who voted for Obama in the past then went for Trump in 2016 showed, populism is a fickle beast.
Another parallel with the practice of German fascism is Trump's reliance on militarism to promote US leadership in the world. The current world order he is de-constructing is one based on mutual defense treaties (NATO) and multinational economic and trade arrangements. Instead, Trump's vision of leadership is relying on military muscle power as a threat to deter attacks and as a "might makes right" bully power over the rest of the world. Where it does differ from Hitler's rise is that Hitler used military buildup in manufacturing as an argument to the public, promoting it as a way to pull Germany out of the depression.
Comments 10/29/20
It appears that Trump's job approval hovers around 44% ...consistently. In 1958 and 1959 I trekked to war-damaged Berlin for a junior year abroad from Northwestern University. As a political science major I was curious how could such a civilized and advanced society support the rise of fascism. Germans did; they were willing. Now seeing the kind of hold Trump has on his followers and his adoring rally attenders, I have come to the conclusion there was nothing unique about Germans though their dire post World War I and Depression economic conditions were much more extreme than in 2016 in America. The forces at work in the past 4 years are different. The economy was good for the very rich, but patchy for others and racism reared its ugly head as Trump began his campaign riding down the escalator with show biz racist history and hatred of everything Obama, who he saw as illegitimate and foreign-born. The demographic shifts of the rise of the power of women and minorities as political leaders drove much of this and fed his tweets, rants, and rallies during his entire presidency. His inability to deal with COVID laid bare disparities and fears of loss of power of the white male majority. My final realization in October 2020 is that I did not need to go to Germany to understand how Hitler rose. The answer lay within my own country and in the soul of a significant number of our population. It is that dark soul that Joe Biden is battling.
They may not have been wearing brownshirts of the early 1930's in Germany, but they are political thugs, nonetheless...and Trump has their back...he thinks. That the FBI (his agency) is investigating them is encouraging. After all, Director Christopher Wray has already been told by Trump he will be fired because he has not danced to Trump's tune. Trump's idea is that law and order only applies to those who oppose him.. By the way, these "patriots" he calls them also tried their stunt in Denver.
Fascism is not in the future: it is here now. If it looks like a duck, waddles like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is a duck..Trump is looking like a fascist, acting like one, and speaking like one. In an epic quack,, Trump recently threatened to sen 75,000 federal agents into cities to "bring law and order" and says many times he wants the feds to "dominate the streets". Action speaks louder than words. . Trump is now the provocateur in chief, creating violence so he can tell in followers he can cure violence. It provides great photo ops and stories on FOX as he tries to scare those wavering support of him that he is the law and order president to save them from the violence he has provoked. Law and order .means to him he creates the disorder and violates the law to save people from the disorder he provoked. He deserves that designation because he s mimicking strategies fascists of the 1930s used to gain and keep power. Masha Gessen, author of "Surviving Autocracy" concluded that Trump is acting fascism. In 2018, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright sounded the alarm on fascism, not that she was ready to call Trump a fascist, there were some warning signs, especially his belief he was above the law. https://www.pri.org/stories/2018-04-25/madeleine-albright-thinks-its-time-set-alarm-fascism. She wrote that before Trump sent his federal secret forces into Lafayette Square and Portland, Oregon.
Anne Applebaum writing in the Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/trump-putting-show-portland/614521/ "The president is deploying the kind of performative authoritarianism that Vladimir Putin pioneered."
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/23/politics/trump-federal-agents-us-cities/index.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/06/02/despite-mcenanys-pushback-trump-makes-it-abundantly-clear-what-he-means-by-dominate/
I write this with reluctance because accusing someone of being fascist is inflammatory. and immediately comes to mind Hitler and the Nazis. The more polite term media has settled on is authoritarianism. It is a philosophical word that means something similar to the practice of fascism and communist dictatorships. Karen Stenner, the author of “The Authoritarian Dynamic,” described as what we are facing with Trump is not a fight conducted by the conservative right but it is coming from another animal: authoritarianism. I am relating her term to a familiar historical reference, fascism. Fascism is one manifestation of authoritarianism as practiced by fascists of the 1930s. However, authoritarianism can also describe the dictatorial rule of Stalin. Another term in the '30s and '40s that has been used by critics of the fascists is totalitarianism which is the most extreme form of authoritarianism that governs and demands conformity of every aspect of civil life. Stenner penned an email to columnist Tom Edsell witing on the issue to make the case that democracy is under threat by authoritarians, not conservatives.:
Hitler was the most extreme model of fascism, but Mussolini, Peron, and Pinochet, the Argentine junta, and South American dictators come to mind. Not all were racists,but all used brutal measures to contain and destroy their opposition. These are all dictators of the extreme right-wing or military who came to power in countries with nominally democratic governments. In our current era, more newly minted dictators riding the wave of chaos or fear and hatred are Vladimir Putin of Russia and Erdogan of Turkey. More moderate versions are raising their heads in Poland and Hungary who do not tolerate and who persecute dissidents and rose to power by anti-immigrant oratory. We have seen before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the dictatorships and totalitarian control by those from the extreme left, the Communists following at worst the Stalinist model. They were likewise as damaging to humanity and human rights as were any 1930's fascists. They are not the only alternative to governance, but the absolute enemy of democracy embraced by the founders of America and post World War II Europe that provides the third way of humane governance we have enjoyed until now. Most attempts at our kind of democracy have met totalitarianism and dictatorships and the supporters of democracy failed to stop their takeover, by forms of totalitarianism and dictatorships, kings, and tyrants from early Greece and Rome to more modern eras. Our democracy is 250 years old, and only with the grace of those dedicated to democracy of both political parties stand in the way of its demise. Small d democracy calls for allegiance to the rule of law instead of the rule of a person, with the law formed by a freely elected representative government, protecting freedom of the press, the right to peacefully assemble to present grievances, and other protections included among all those civil rights addressed in the First Amendment"It’s really critical to help people understand the difference between conservatives and authoritarians. Conservatives are by nature opposed to change and novelty, whereas authoritarians are averse to diversity and complexity. It’s a subtle but absolutely critical distinction. What we’re facing..is an authoritarian revolution — not a conservative revolution, the term is inherently contradictory — which in the U.S. has been creeping up since the 1960s." https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/22/opinion/liberals-conservatives-trump-america.html
A strategy used by Hitler is similar to one Trump in Portland, OR. Both fomented the civil strife they claimed they could fix. Hitler sent his brown shirts out to foment street demonstrations and burned down the Reichstag so he could claim he could bring order to Germany. The strategy worked. Gessen, on MSNBC Friday, July 24, 2020, reminded us that Fascism in Germany took as many as 6 years to mature into the horror we associated with it. The point is that it is a gradual takeover and it started step by step. Gessen concluded that Trump is acting fascism, whether he or his followers realize it. Mussolini had another description of the process: To paraphrase If you pluck one chicken feather at a time, it times before the chicken realizes it is nearly bald.
As Gessen pointed out so far only a third of Americans are approving of Trump's more extreme actions. Hitler in 1932 series of presidential elections and control of the parliament got around 33-37% of the popular vote before he seized power in 1933. He used parliamentary coalitions to gain great control. The US does not have a parliamentary system and there are checks and balances still in effect and are being exercised, mostly through the courts, since the Senate GOP members are complacent, compliant or complicit or are loyal to him or afraid of him...What is eerily similar though is that the size of Hitler's hardcore base percentage in elections in 1932 is similar to Trump's base percentage of the electorate in 2020.
Not only is Donald Trump contending he is above the US law, he says he is above the law and the World Court governing crimes against humanity. Having known victims, including relatives, of war crimes conducted by those in the 1990's Balkan wars (of ethnic cleansing) I well aware of war crimes conducted there and I followed the international prosecution that brought those who committed the mass killings was made possible by the World Court. I have been in Courtroom 600 in Nuremberg and listened to a docent recount much of what went on and the results there. The ghosts of Hitler the demagogue addressing the masses of uninformed Heil Hitler saluting him haunted me when I visited the Nuremberg stadium where one of his largest rallies took place. It reminded me of how vulnerable humanity can be inspired to violating the standards of civilization when actions are motivated by hate and lust for power. There is a reason that the largest demographic of voters supporting Trump are those with no college education. They have either forgotten what they learned in whatever education they had or do not see the parallel of Trump to the early rise of fascism in the 1930s. Having lived and studied in Germany 12 years after the end of World War II and married a refugee from Communist Yugoslavia, inhumane totalitarian governments are to be prevented and nipped in the bud whether their dictators ride their rise to power on the wings of left or right ideology.
https://billmoyers.com/story/nuremberg-prosecutors-warning-about-trumps-war-on-the-rule-of-law/
An update 7/4/2020 and 7/23/2020 The fact that Trump is trying to call demonstrations left-wing fascism shows how defensive he is to being called a fascist himself
He thinks that by redefining fascism, he can avoid the charge. It is classic Trump: call his opposition what others are calling him. Street violence is an expression of a revolt against injustice.committed by the oppressed of any ideology.
The term fascism is not a swear word; It is the diametric opposite of democracy. It is also a method to get power and to keep it. Fascism is a form of governance, of authoritarianism, based on hyper-nationalism, totalitarian control of justice and domination of power over civilian life, the crushing of dissidents and press freedom, the end of any checks on executive power, ending the rule of law. while keeping and using private sector economic powers. t. All of those elements are what Trump has to some extent aspired to in his statements. Fascism in various forms is a streak running through the American experience. It has roots in the KKK and emerged in strength in the late 1930's. https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2020/06/22/american-fascism-it-has-happened-here/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/10/21/how-fascist-is-donald-trump-theres-actually-a-formula-for-that/ This was written during the 2016 campaign, but the criteria of what is a fascist are relevant. The exhortation to violence and racism that have emerged since then might give him more "benitos".
He praises racist militias as fine people,, and attacks even peaceful demonstrators, and called for active military domination on the streets,, attempts to suppress the free press, caters to the 1% on economic matters, and stacking the justice system and judges with loyalists., while claiming he is above the law.
. Born in 1938, I have early memories toward the end of World War II of how it met its fate and in the late 1950's I spent a year in war-torn Germany, Italy, and the Balkans wondering how it could have happened. In most cases, a willing populace voted them in and supported its rise. The blame is shared by both their leaders and the people who supported them for reasons ranging from ethnic/religious/racial hatred to fear of communism to economic gains in a time of economic stress and political turmoil. Germany 's Nazism was the most extreme form of fascism. Hitler's Third Reich was a popular enough solution to boost him to power since many believed it served to restore Germany's greatness post defeat in World War I with the devastating reparations, and later coupled with the depression.
. Born in 1938, I have early memories toward the end of World War II of how it met its fate and in the late 1950's I spent a year in war-torn Germany, Italy, and the Balkans wondering how it could have happened. In most cases, a willing populace voted them in and supported its rise. The blame is shared by both their leaders and the people who supported them for reasons ranging from ethnic/religious/racial hatred to fear of communism to economic gains in a time of economic stress and political turmoil. Germany 's Nazism was the most extreme form of fascism. Hitler's Third Reich was a popular enough solution to boost him to power since many believed it served to restore Germany's greatness post defeat in World War I with the devastating reparations, and later coupled with the depression.
Continuing the 6/ 4/2020 posting.
I wrote the blog posting below one month into the Trump administration...February 2017. It was my reason for not calling Trump a fascist. Name-calling and using the word fascism and Trump in the same breath is admittedly inflammatory and I stated why I did not call him a fascist then and why he did not yet fit the definition.
Here is why I am using it now 1. In three and a half years his racism and appeal to white nationalism is not subtle. It was not a show business device. His view of Justice is not equally applied or color blind and he uses racism to feather his political nest, divide and conquer 2. Hoodwinking US military officials into intervening to promote his political agenda 3. Calling all demonstrators, peaceful and violent, thugs to be dominated by force and oppression. 4. Willful ignorance of Constitutional constraints on the executive's power and protections of peaceful demonstrations. Update: 7/9/2020: No, Mr. President. You are not a king or a dictator. This is the most important part of the 7-2 Supreme Court decision yesterday. President Trump had asserted he could not be investigated or charged with a crime as president: The rule of law and Trump's compliance was upheld. Being the president did not give him special immunity. He had absolute immunity in criminal matters, he claimed. He did not have to comply with subpoenas in criminal matters from grand juries. No, said the court. He does not. He has the rights of any ordinary citizens and he had to respond to subpoenas in criminal cases, even if issued by State or Federal prosecutors. The checks and balances on presidential power held. The President was not above the law, though the president had claimed he was. This confirms the basic tenant of the Constitution and it was upheld by even Trump's recent appointees, Justices Kavanaugh and Gorsuch. The political impact is that we will not get the President's tax returns before November. The Congressional subpoena of Trump's financial records issued for legislative oversight reasons was also sent back to the lower courts. The New York state case regarding tax returns was sent back to the grand jury process. The grand jury process is secret unless there is an indictment resulting in a trial, and the other concerning Congress oversight was sent back to narrow the scope of the subpoena. Congress had the power over the executive branch of oversight was untouched. It does.. The reason for the New York case was to see if Trump committed a tax crime in the Stormy Daniels and Michael Cohen payoff case. Congress wanted to see if financial crimes were involved, with an underlying suspicion that Russia had something on Trump that explained why he kowtowed to Putin in so many matters. https://www.newsweek.com/colin-powell-donald-trump-america-we-people-madeleine-albright-constitution-1157119?fbclid=IwAR18fW3EczffZLXVdiTCPKZeJ8cgMePJ_cFfqsChsetAkhFAZDy--ma3xbk5. Announcing his intent to use US military against our own civilians. These put him firmly in the ranks of the 1930's fascists.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/05/89-former-defense-officials-military-must-never-be-used-violate-constitutional-rights/?fbclid=IwAR2AS7HM5YZ26ckmSfGJ-LhFWlTLq7IowLWt_L6wBgWeahQSNchkK8qNFf4
Some intellectual roots of the Tea Party and racist movements of the Trump era may be found in the following:https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/meet-the-economist-behind-the-one-percents-stealth-takeover-of-america The phrase that curled my hair was that once oligarchs take over, a stronger government was needed to put down a populist revolt.
One of the most damning comments about what would happen in a Trump second term would be the end of democracy..and this came from a respected Republican, William Cohen: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/amanpour-and-company/video/former-secretary-of-defense-william-cohen-on-the-election/?fbclid=IwAR0YyjwgZnoApMxPPIuPKCqDTLirv6DKa_FQsA536J5YEDoysWXuHW4cWFo
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: I guess, you know, you’ve been on the cutting edge of foreign policy for so long. What do you see and what do you expect if there was to be a second Trump administration?
WILLIAM COHEN, FORMER U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: Well, if that were to take place, then I think we would not recognize America as a democracy. I think President Trump is taking us down the road to tyranny, to one-man rule, to try and replicate what he sees as a positive in Moscow with President Putin or in Turkey with President Erdogan, or over in China or North Korea. I think he wants to have one-man rule, and it’s not the rule of law but just the opposite. It’s the law of rule, where he only can make decisions. And he said quite, you know, publicly on multiple occasions, I’m above the law. The law doesn’t apply to me. I’m the chief law enforcement officer. I am the commander in chief. Nothing I do is illegal because I do it. And so, if you take away an obligation to run for reelection, now, he has absolute authority to do whatever he wants because he feels he’s not even bound by the law. And so, I see a very dictatorial absolutist type of rule in the country, and again, I don’t think we’ll be a democracy at that point.
Updated blog posting: Feb. 17-25 2017
I have refrained from calling the Trump administration fascist. It is not there yet. It is too early to tell and the constraints of law and the Constitution may keep President Trump from putting some of his innate tendencies into practice. However, every day it seems Trump's actions resemble even more the examples of fascism as practiced in the 20th century.
The definition of fascism as a philosophy is complex, but actions can be the definer, too. Calling someone fascist brings to mind Hitler, the gas chambers, the hyper-nationalism, the rallies and parades, and a goal of economic recovery based on ramping up the military/industrial complex, blaming and scapegoating minorities, and feeding on the emotions of those who hate "others". Hitler seems to personify it in many minds, though the 20th-century ideological roots are actually in Italy and Mussolini and not all authoritarian governments are fascist.
While President Trump certainly does not fit the extreme Hitler mold, there are some similar elements to the rise of fascism in Europe found in Trump's tweets and orders and techniques, such as holding rallies to whip up supporters' enthusiasm and hyper-nationalism, exaggerating potential external security threats and the weakness of our military, and the failure of an economy,. He is ignoring the fact that the economy has the lowest unemployment rate since 2009 and had a pre-election robust Wall Street. True, the blue-collar middle class has been left behind. Whatever Trump advocates, the US in 2017 is nowhere like Germany in the early '30s that was decimated by reparations and the Depression.
With crowd-pleasing rhetoric and tweets, Trump claims the only facts that are not fake are those considered true by the Trump administration. He verbally delegitimizes other centers of power, courts, and their judges, and media. Stephen Bannon is the president's most trusted and closest adviser and is also an example of the hatred factor found in fascism. Bannon had been CEO of Breitbart, the media public platform for white supremacists and ultra-nationalists. Leading to Trump's own rise on the political scene was "Obama was born in Kenya" birtherism crusade, considered by many to be dog whistles to racists. Whether or not Bannon and he are racists and bigots themselves is the lesser issue. Like Bannon Trump tolerates and exploits racism for political gain, even being reluctant to condemn bigotry until forced to. His Muslim ban obviously appeals to religious bigots. Pressed for weeks to condemn Jewish cemetery vandalism and threats against religious centers, he finally made a statement last week condemning anti-Semitism.
These last couple of weeks of his media relations were particularly disturbing and brought him a step closer to qualifying as at least a wannabe fascist. Looking at how the fascist movement got into power in the last century, we can see some similarities. One is an attempt to bully and control the press and to take over the messaging. Trump is beginning the process by excluding "opposition" outlets. CNN and the New York Times were kept from the press "gaggle"at a non-televised briefing at the White House and Trump and his spokespeople have refused to call on reporters who represented media promoting stories critical of him. These were obvious attempts at "punishing" CNN and the Times. Their sin: reporting on Trump's possible even closer relationship with Russians during the campaign. (Added June, 2020. John Bolton's tell all book, Trump called journalists scumbags that should be executied;https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/503244-bolton-claims-trump-called-for-scumbag-journalists-to-be-executed)
The most serious media-related event raised the question of whether his administration had tried to influence the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign's colluding with the Russians. One version reported by the media was that Reince Priebus, Trump's chief of staff, had approached the FBI director asking him to tamp down a report being leaked from the agency as flawed because there was no evidence any Russian contact involved Russian agents. The Trump administration did not deny the contact had been made with Russians, but said it was not their agents, and counterclaimed that the FBI director had approached Priebus. If the latter is true, then the FBI's impartiality and credibility in their Russian related investigations into Russian hacking and meddling in the 2016 elections are jeopardized. If the administration initiated the contact with the FBI, then they are verging on a Nixon-like cover-up and look guilty that there is a fire in the smoke. Adding to suspicions that there is something there there, as many have noted, Trump has never flatly denied that contact with Russians and his campaign staff occurred but instead has tried to deflect attention to "illegal leaks", as a way to direct public attention and media focus elsewhere and a way to scotch deeper probes.
Either way, the exchange with the FBI flap is not good news for the Trump administration. In that dust-up, what has been clear is that the Trump administration is fearful that the FBI or the other investigations being conducted by intelligence agencies will find the smoking gun of collusion with Russian agents. If that collusion turns out to be sanctioned or conducted by Donald Trump himself or others in his campaign acting under his direction, that could lead to impeachment at worse or destroying the credibility, legitimacy, and effectiveness of the administration at best. The stakes are very high.
.Populism has also been an element in the rise of fascism. Candidate Trump's appeal to the blue-collar working demographic was more populist than corporate. Ironically, a corporatist element has been added to Trump's presidential administration with the appointment of the team of billionaires to the various cabinet posts. These cabinet officers have been charged to de-construct their departments, eliminating consumer and environmental protections that were designed to protect the middle class from corporate excesses.
The populist rationale Trump has pitched to the public is that this pro-business, anti-environment/consumer approach will lead to high paying job creation in the rust belt and national economic growth. Those most affected by economic struggles are without a college education and robotics have replaced many of those jobs once held by human beings. Some blame unions, too, for holding back efficiencies. Trump has not provided any plan to fix those problems but instead has blamed bad trade policies. Whether protectionism will result in high paying jobs with a workforce ill-equipped to fill them or reduce robotics is doubtful. If proof of Russian collusion does not lead to his defeat in 2020, his failure to provide promised economic growth and high paying job creation will. As counties who voted for Obama in the past then went for Trump in 2016 showed, populism is a fickle beast.
Another parallel with the practice of German fascism is Trump's reliance on militarism to promote US leadership in the world. The current world order he is de-constructing is one based on mutual defense treaties (NATO) and multinational economic and trade arrangements. Instead, Trump's vision of leadership is relying on military muscle power as a threat to deter attacks and as a "might makes right" bully power over the rest of the world. Where it does differ from Hitler's rise is that Hitler used military buildup in manufacturing as an argument to the public, promoting it as a way to pull Germany out of the depression.
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