I've Hesitated to Call Donald Trump a Fascist. Until Now

[robosmith]

I've Hesitated to Call Donald Trump a Fascist. Until Now

Quote

I resisted for a long time applying the fascist label to Donald J. Trump. He did indeed display some telltale signs. In 2016, a newsreel clip of Trump's plane taxiing up to a hangar where cheering supporters awaited reminded me eerily of Adolf Hitler's electoral campaign in Germany in July 1932, the first airborne campaign in history, where the arrival of the Führer's plane electrified the crowd. Once the rally began, with Hitler and Mussolini, Trump mastered the art of back-and-forth exchanges with his enraptured listeners. There was the threat of physical violence ( lock her up! ), sometimes leading to the forceful ejection of hecklers. The Proud Boys stood in convincingly for Hitler's Storm Troopers and Mussolini's squadristi. The MAGA hats even provided a bit of uniform.The  America First  message and the leader's arrogant swagger fit the fascist model.

But these are matters of surface decor. How did Trump relate to more profound social, political, economic, and cultural forces in American life? Like Hitler, among the first political leaders to master radio, Trump mastered electronic media like Twitter and won the support of America's largest television chain, Fox News. Like the fascist leaders Trump understood the deep disaffection of parts of society for traditional leaders and institutions, and he knew how to exploit a widespread fear of national division and decline. Like Hitler and Mussolini he knew how to pose as the only effective bulwark against an advancing Left, all the more fearful because it took on cultural forms unfamiliar to provincial rural America—feminism, Black Power, gay rights.

But Trump and Trumpism also differ in some important ways from the historical fascisms. The circumstances are profoundly different. Although the United States has its problems, these are minor compared to those of the defeated Germany of 1932, with over 30 percent of workers unemployed, or the divided Italy at the brink of civil war in 1921. Most Americans are employed, or were until the pandemic, while those lucky enough to own stocks are in clover. American political institutions are not deadlocked, as were those of Germany in 1932, when President Hindenburg believed that only Hitler could stop the rapidly growing Communist Party. American circumstances are unlike those of Italy in 1921, where the King believed that the only way to stop the runaway take-overs of Italian cities by Mussolini's new nationalist and anti-socialist mass movement he called Fascism was to invite its leader into office. The crisis created by Trump's refusal to accept a legitimate electoral outcome seems almost trivial by comparison.

A further fundamental difference is Trump's relation to the world of business. Whereas Hitler and Mussolini, at least at the beginning, won their mass audiences with promises to shake up capitalist power, and whereas, once in power with the support of the same businessmen against Labor, the fascist leaders had subjected businessmen, often against their preferences, to the demands of forced rearmament, Trump gave American business what they wanted: the relaxation of regulations and access to world markets. It seemed to me better to avoid one more facile and polemical use of the fascist label in favor of a more unemotional term, such as oligarchy or plutocracy.

Trump's incitement of the invasion of the Capitol on January 6, 2020 removes my objection to the fascist label. His open encouragement of civic violence to overturn an election crosses a red line. The label now seems not just acceptable but necessary. It is made even more plausible by comparison with a milestone on Europe's road to fascism—an openly fascist demonstration in Paris during the night of February 6, 1934.

Curiously, it seems the Washington demonstrators' success at breaching the Capitol gives them less support in American society today than the unsuccessful French demonstrators of February 1934 acquired in their country. In France, elections in June 1936 had a highly contested outcome: the installation of a Jew and a Socialist, Leon Blum, as the French Prime Minister. French fascists remained active opponents of Blum until opportunity came for them again in June 1940 with Hitler's defeat of the French Army, and the replacement of the French parliamentary republic with the authoritarian Vichy regime. In the United States, after the ignominious failure of a shocking fascist attempt to undo Biden's election, the new American President can begin his work of healing on January 20. Despite encouraging early signs and the relative robustness of American institutions, it's too soon for a responsible historian to say whether he'll be more successful in sustaining our Republic than European leaders were in defending theirs. 

It takes some people a while to figure out what the evidence means.
 

[CdnFox]

Either you nor this person has ever hesitated for a moment to call Trump a fascist or a Nazi.

But I love them trying to give the impression that after years of resisting they're finally caved, like they were that 5th dentyne dentist or something.    "FINE! CHEW IT! CHEW IT FOR GOD"S SAKE PEOPLE   (Sob!) "

[Rebound]

9 hours ago, CdnFox said:

Either you nor this person has ever hesitated for a moment to call Trump a fascist or a Nazi.

But I love them trying to give the impression that after years of resisting they're finally caved, like they were that 5th dentyne dentist or something.    "FINE! CHEW IT! CHEW IT FOR GOD"S SAKE PEOPLE   (Sob!) "

“I’ll be a dictator on Day One” is something only a fascist would say.  

Edited Friday at 02:47 PM by Rebound

[CdnFox]

2 hours ago, Rebound said:

“I’ll be a dictator on Day One” is something only a fascist would say.  

Making that claim is something only a liar would say.

Contact is everything. It's very clear from the context of what he was saying that he intends not to listen to people's advice or to get other opinions but simply to tell people what to do. This is in contrast to how he feels he behaved last time where he took advice and tried to please everybody and it backfired.

Which is exactly how hillary was described by the way by people who work for her. Many leaders are that way in business and in politics.

That has absolutely nothing to do with fascism. Like, at all. Not even a little bit. It's a dumb thing to say.

But for some reason right at the moment the left appears to be focused on trying to take things he says out of context and pretend it has a different meaning rather than simply pointing out all the dumb things he actually says.

There's enough actual stupid to work with without having to invent things he didn't actually say or mean.

[WestCanMan]

"I've Hesitated to Call Donald Trump a Fascist" 🤣

Fact: you've been quick to belch out every snotty insult that you ever thought of, and to repeat every insult against Trump you've ever heard, regardless of how little proof came with it. 

[robosmith]

4 minutes ago, WestCanMan said:

"I've Hesitated to Call Donald Trump a Fascist" 🤣

Fact: you've been quick to belch out every snotty insult that you ever thought of, and to repeat every insult against Trump you've ever heard, regardless of how little proof came with it. 

The article I quoted is NOT what I've said. I've seen the evidence for years and NOT HESITATED to call Trump a FASCIST.

Meanwhile you're pretending the Politico article damns Joe Biden with a crime but cannot even quote the text from it which details that EVIDENCE. LMAO

Edited Friday at 06:12 PM by robosmith

[Moonbox]

58 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

But for some reason right at the moment the left appears to be focused on trying to take things he says out of context

So he didn't say anything about suspending parts of the Constitution?  

What's the "context" there?  😑

[WestCanMan]

18 minutes ago, robosmith said:

Meanwhile you're pretending the Politico article damns Joe Biden with a crime but cannot even quote the text from it which details that EVIDENCE. LMAO

Joe used his power as the VPOTUS to profit from business deals with one of America's foremost geopolitical enemies: the gov't of China. Is that ok with you? 

[CdnFox]

44 minutes ago, Moonbox said:

So he didn't say anything about suspending parts of the Constitution?  

Well lets look at what he actually said. 

Hannity: “I want to go back to this one issue though because the media has been focused on this and attacking you. Under no circumstances you’re promising America tonight you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody?”

Trump: “Except for Day 1.”

Hannity: “Except for?”

Trump: (pointing to Hannity) “Look, he’s going crazy. Except for Day 1.”

Hannity: “Meaning?”

Trump: “I want to close the border and I want to drill, drill, drill.”

Hannity: “That’s not retribution.”

Trump, referring to Hannity: “We love this guy. He says, ‘You are not going to be a dictator, are you?’ I said, ‘No, no, no, other than Day 1.’ We are closing the border and we are drilling, drilling, drilling. After that I am not a dictator, OK?”

Hannity: “That sounds to me like you’re going back to the policies when you were president.”

 

Did you see anything in there about the constitution?  No? Neither did I. 

He said day one (and only day one) he would be a  'dictator' with regards to closing the border and drilling.  Didn't even say he was going to step outside his presidential powers. 

But the dems have said repeatedly he said he intends to be a dictator and rule the country illegally. 

As for context This was in response to the rediculus claim by Chris Cristie that trump would definitely be a dictator. 

So a democrat makes the statement, the democratic press demands to know if it's true, and trump says day one he's going to dictate on oil  and the border and the dems forever more claim he says he's going to be a dictator. 

There you go. 

[robosmith]

40 minutes ago, WestCanMan said:

Joe used his power as the VPOTUS to profit from business deals with one of America's foremost geopolitical enemies: the gov't of China. Is that ok with you? 

Quote where the Politico article says that.