Below is a link to an article that openly explores the question as to whether or not the rise of Trumpism can truly be likened to a turn towards fascism in the United States.
To me, the answer has always seemed quite clear. To be forthright, yes, Trumpism has gotten us closer to fascism, and if it is allowed to rise again, it will bring us even closer still.
Apparently, many Americans, both on the left and the right, struggle to either understand this, or to accept this. Trump fans, of course, do not like it when they, or the man who they apparently love so much, or the entire political movement that they so identify with, is likened to fascism. It seems to me that a lot of Americans do not actually understand what fascism is. But they do understand this much: it is not a compliment. It is generally understood to be a bad thing, because both sides hurl accusations of fascism at one another.
So, is calling Trump, or Trumpism, just another political slander, trying to discredit some legitimate political ideology?
No, it is not. Trumpism truly does resemble fascism so closely, that it is irresponsible to try and undermine, much less dismiss, evidence of these similarities.
How is Trumpism similar to fascism?
Well, first and foremost, Trump clearly believes in one thing, above pretty much all others, and it is this: might makes right. He was deathly afraid of anything that might compromise the illusion of strength. If anything possibly compromised this image and threatened to make him look weak, he went to extraordinary lengths to try and hide it, or to do something that would make him appear strong to his supporters. It does not matter if there was any validity to what he was saying or not. It does not matter if America was in worse shape for his being president, so long as he could claim that it was better, and that he was the greatest president in history. It did not matter if he literally censored some news (particularly regarding climate change) and relentlessly attacked the media, so long as he came across seemingly stronger for it.
Admittedly, it took me a while to understand what the appeal was for so many people. After all, Trump used a strategy of lying and or attacking the media whenever they asked him unflattering questions, or reported news that was not favorable to him or his administration. But the very fact that this strategy – and let us understand here that it was nothing more than a strategy, or to put it another way that is truer to the nature of a con artist like Trump, just another empty gimmick devoid of any serious meaning – made him appear stronger to his supporters. To them, this was the epitome of strength, because he was getting under the skin of the liberal elites, or the libtards, or whatever other phrase these people used to try and dismiss critical news of Trump.
It had long perplexed me that anyone could see this as true leadership, let along some kind of admirable strength in a leader. But there came a point when a high school classmate posted something on Facebook about Kayleigh McEnany, and how not answering questions was somehow “owning” the stupid liberal elites, or libtards, or whatever the hell it as. Basically, the post suggested that she was kicking some liberal ass. I do not remember the exact words that were used, but it was more or less on that level.
By that point, I was tired of engaging former classmates on the topic of politics, having had numerous bad experiences with it before, so I did not ask this person how this could be viewed as “winning.” Trump had promised that, once he was president, the country would just go on winning and winning, until we Americans got tired of winning. We would get tired of it to the point that we would ask him to stop, but he would refuse, and keep the country winning. Yet, the only real “winning” that I saw was very similar to this, which was a method or strategy practiced by almost every enthusiastic member of the Trump administration. It was enough to make me wonder if Trump had simply misspelled “whining,” which would have been a whole lot more accurate. Indeed, he and his cronies did an awful lot of whining, and yes, most Americans truly did get tired of it. And sure enough, for once, Trump was true to his word, because when many Americans asked him to stop all of the whining, he refused.
Still, how could this be viewed as “winning?” Do these people seriously think that they win a debate by refusing to answer tough questions?
Then it occurred to me that the answer had been in front of me the entire time, and it was just that I had perhaps refused to believe it, or could not see it. Indeed, for them, anything that drove the elitist libtards cray was indeed a notch under the “win” belt. When you regard a group like this as the enemy of the country, then yes, it is their definition of winning.
And that brings me to the first way that Trumpism tends towards fascism: xenophobia. Is it a stereotype, or overblown, to suggest that Trump himself, or his supporters, are racists? They sure seem to get tired of hearing it. But when you ignore one thing after another that surely suggests that racism is at play, that does not negate it from being a problem. They ignored all of the signs, including Trump’s speech announcing his candidacy in the first place, when he said that Mexicans were criminals and rapists. They ignored the Muslim registry, or defended it. They ignored him singling out his “African American” at a rally. They ignored his comments about how all of those African and Central American countries were “shithole nations,” and holding Norway up instead as an ideal nation for immigration to the United States (as if Norwegians who enjoy a higher standard than Americans do are just lining up to move here). They ignored when Trump posted a video of one of his supporters yelling “white power!” during the 2020 election. And all of that was just him. There’s also Stephen Miller, and Steve Bannon. And there’s also the fact that white nationalists were among his staunchest supporters, and he received the official endorsement of the Ku Klux Klan.
So yeah, whether or not it is acknowledged by his supporters or not, xenophobia certainly appears to be a very serious issue, and one of the key, striking similarities that Trumpism has with fascism. So striking, in fact, that it cannot be easily dismissed as alarmist.
Then, there’s the whole inability to criticize them thing. Anytime anyone said anything that was remotely critical of Trump or his administration, he freaked out. Called the media “fake news” in an obvious attempt to dismiss everything that they said, which of course also allows him to conveniently not answer questions or be accountable for his actions. Add to that his attempts to control stories coming out about climate change, effectively censoring such stories and research, and you get a decidedly anti-science, anti-knowledge administration. Maybe this was not quite like book burning, but in this day and age, it feels like it is done in the same spirit, and often with the same meanness in spirit, at that. Also, remember, the whole backlash against what is called "Critical Race Theory " is mostly an attempt to whitewash our history.
Perhaps the most obvious way in which Trumpism resembles fascism is militarism. Right away, Trump increased the military budget to ridiculous proportions, giving them more money than they themselves had asked for. Then, there was the matter of him claiming to know more than his own generals about certain military matters (particularly regarding ISIS) is something that certain dictators in the past have been known for, as well. Finally, there was his fixation on military parades and shows of military strength and seeming devotion to him. All tendencies that we can observe in fascism.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt warned Americans many decades ago that the "essence is fascism" was "ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power.” Despite Trump's claims that he could not be bought, for all intents and purposes suggesting that he was beyond corruption, he himself acted like an autocrat, and saw no problems or conflict of interests promoting the interests of corporations and extremely wealthy Americans seemingly first and foremost, ahead of the majority of Americans. Quite conveniently, his own business interests were well taken care of and benefited from his policies, as well. Public land once belonging to the people were sold off to private interests. Corporations and the wealthiest Americans got all sorts of tax benefits and breaks, adding to the already absurd wealth gap. The corrupt power of the de facto corporate supremacy had certainly not begun with Trump, but it was greatly accelerated under him, even while he himself shamelessly claimed otherwise to the only people who would believe him: his most loyal, unyielding supporters.
Finally, there is his unceasing demand for loyalty and love. He had each member of his cabinet meeting heap praise on him at one point, and seemed to always, without fail, demand gratitude for the job that he was doing. And he always assumed that what he was doing was beyond wonderful, but indispensable to all parties involved. The unspoken assumption, then, of course, is that everything would simply fall apart without him, that the country would simply completely unravel, and thank goodness he was there to prevent that complete chaos from happening. After all, he was the self-proclaimed "law and order" president. He demanded it from his supporters, as well, and as if we needed still more flag-waving and chest thumping, there was a wave of aggressive nationalism that is still very much in evidence. This support showed a very aggressive, even militant side to it, as was evidenced by the spike in hate crimes that coincided with the political rise of Trump, and which became most obvious earlier this year, when the unruly crowd of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in Washington.
So yes, Trumpism really is fascism. That is not just some kind of exaggerated political slander, or political tactics. It is the reality, and that is why so many Republicans, even, were willing to risk or even end their political careers in order to stand up to it. Of course, Democrats were expected to be opposed to Trump and Trumpism, but the fact that so many prominent Republicans were willing to do so, knowing that their political prominence would end as a result of it, is telling. For once, these politicians were willing, or seemed willing, to put their own narrow self-interests aside to warn Americans about a real danger, and that danger was the fascistic tendencies that they saw in Trumpism. Some of the prominent names included, but were not limited to Jeb Bush, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Senator Jeff Flake, and House Leader Liz Cheney, and again, those are just a few. That does not include the hand picked members of Trump's own staff, including Vice-President Mike Pence, who admitted that he and Trump would never see eye to eye about what happened on January 6th, and the storming of the Capitol Building in Washington, which again, itself also resembled a fascist attempt at a coup d'état. It seemed straight out of the practices of Hitler and the Nazis, with their Beer Hall Putsch.
Yes, it is well past the time to put away our collective reservations about admitting how closely Americans flirted with fascism under Trump. By pretending that it was less than it actually was, we are still effectively flirting with it, seemingly too shocked by it's reality to come to terms with it. If we are to defeat Trumpism, then we need to recognize it for what it is, and state it boldly. Indeed, Trumpism is fascism, and as such, it is anti-American in terms of being opposed to democracy and the American Constitution. It represents a threat to our American way of life, and our democracy, which seems far more fragile now than it did before Trump was elected in 2016. What remains for us now is not only to acknowledge that these similarities to fascism are just too numerous and too extensive to be dismissed as mere coincidence. Then, we have to make a choice: do we want to preserve our democracy, or do we want to see this man, and his absurd movement, complete the job of eroding American democracy and ushering in a new age of a peculiar brand of American fascism?
Is It Finally Time to Begin Calling Trumpism Fascist? by Ed Kilgore, July 14, 2021:
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/07/is-it-finally-time-to-begin-calling-trumpism-fascism.html?utm_source=tw&s=04&fbclid=IwAR31SR6d4IvlQXsoeV8I5t0t1u_pi4WIK0FasxQCOgZ2Qnd3oydX9SvFStg
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