Trump is a fascist, although many voters don’t want to hear it

After the tsunami racist, rude and violent MAGA speeches at Donald Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday, it’s no surprise that the label “fascist” applies this wannabe despot.

His behavior during his first term—especially his thwarted attempts to use the army against his “domestic enemies”—prompted retired generals who served in his administration to use the term. After Trump incited a mob to storm the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, America’s most prominent historian of fascism, Robert O. Paxton, also decided that the label was appropriate.

Problem: Many Americans don’t know the meaning of this term fascism. They associate him with Adolf Hitler, whose crimes were so enormous that many voters don’t believe the term can be applied to Trump. This, as usual, leads to the accusation being dismissed as political, especially since Trump continues to use it to falsely smear Vice President Kamala Harris.

However, talk of fascism may be the most important conversation voters don’t want to hear.

Political advisers told Harris to stop talking about fascism as voters focused on the cost of living. This may be true, but as Trump’s chief of staff, retired General John Kelly, his former boss, told the New York Times fits the definition of a fascist.

Why does this terminology matter? Why not just call Trump a wannabe strongman, like the foreign despots he constantly talks about? After all, Trump probably doesn’t even know what the term means. fascist.

My answer: A look at what fascist rulers had in common and how Trump fits that mold helps explain his appeal to MAGA’s most devoted followers—and why it poses such an urgent danger if he wins a second term.

Fascist behavior, says historian Paxton, is often based on visceral feelings, especially “an obsessive preoccupation with social decline, humiliation, or victimhood.”

In the case of the US, Trump built his MAGA movement on the charge, shared by his followers, that America is in deep decline. He blames the crowds of dark-skinned and “criminal” migrants—or, as he calls them, “parasites.” According to Trump, these parasites US cities under siege, eating pets, femicideAnd child rape.

“America has become an occupied country,” Trump insists.

According to Paxton, fascist leaders usually attributed their country’s deterioration to “individualistic liberalism and foreign influences.” Fascism then justifies “any action without legal or moral restrictions against one’s internal enemies” for the sake of purifying the nation.

Such actions, in turn, require a supreme (male) leader, adored by his followers, to save the group and make the nation great again, Paxton writes in his book. Anatomy of fascism. Violence may be required.

You’ll notice how the image of the supreme leader ranting against victimhood matches the ugly rhetoric of the Madison Square Garden rally. There, the inhumane accusations went far beyond one comedian’s infamous reference to Puerto Rico as “floating island made of garbage“

A number of Trump’s friends and relatives – their speeches vetted in advance by his team – made grotesque sexual and racial slurs about migrants, Mexicans, blacks and Harris, using language unthinkable at a pre-Trump era political rally.

Trump concluded by calling Democrats the “enemy within” and the mainstream media “the enemy of the people,” while predicting that November 5th would bring “Emancipation Day.”

Asked about the threatening language at the rally, Trump called it a “love fest” and said, “There has never been such a wonderful event.”

As is his custom, the MAGA Pied Piper did not directly call for violence. But his most ardent supporters know exactly what he means when he gets angry, just like they knew January 6. Trump doesn’t have Hitler’s army or the brown shirts of Benito Mussolini, but he does have a very loyal following that ready to turn his insults into individual or militia attacks.

Trump Maria Bartiromo told Fox News that “enemies within” are an even bigger problem than “people coming in and destroying the country.” However, these internal enemies “should be very easy to deal with, if necessary, by National Guard or, if really necessary, the Army (emphasis mine).”

He added: “The enemy within is more dangerous than China or Russia.”

These formulations echo Hitler’s appeal to the internal traitors he blamed for Germany’s defeat in World War I, i.e. the socialists and the Jews. In Trump World, domestic traitors include Republicans who reject Trump’s Hitler-sized “big lie” that he won in 2020, as well as GOP state election officials working to ensure his teams don’t try to steal the 2024 election. year.

Here we get to the heart of why the term fascist completely consistent with Trump’s modus operandi. Fascist movements vary depending on a country’s history, but the common thread revolves around how the supreme leader uses violence to “cleanse” the country and destroy his enemies.

That’s why Trump Chief of Staff Kelly and former Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley calling him a fascist who will rule as a dictator. That’s why so many other security experts who served in his administration warn about the threat he poses.

That’s why Kelly said Trump sometimes praised Hitler and rejected the idea that the military swears an oath to the Constitution rather than a personal oath of allegiance to him. That’s why Milley, who Trump implied deserved execution, said: “We do not swear allegiance to a king, a tyrant, a dictator, or a wannabe dictator.“

Both men fear Trump could recall retired generals for court-martial while seeking senior officers willing to renounce their oath to the Constitution, which prohibits the use of military force against civilians except in rare circumstances.

Trump may be too disorderly to deport 11 million illegal immigrants or jail everyone on his list of enemies, including Nancy Pelosi and Liz Cheney, former defense secretaries and top Justice Department lawyers. However, there there will be no Kelly or Millie stop him this time. Much of his MAGA movement seems blind to the dangers of an American system devoid of checks and balances—a system that could one day haunt their own children or grandchildren.

The choice facing voters Tuesday is clear: fascism with American characteristics or democracy as described in the U.S. Constitution, based on the rule of law rather than rule by one man.