Fascism, Trump, and the Politics of Labels
(CNN) – Ah, the word ‘fascism’—a political label so dirty it could make a pig squeal. So, when John Kelly, former Marine General and also former Secretary of Defense, drops the F-bomb, referring to Trump as a “fascist,” you know it’s just *chef’s kiss* for the headlines. It’s like saying, “I hate mushrooms” at a vegan potluck—an instant conversation starter!
Now, Trump’s not one to take criticism lying down. He’s called Kelly “degenerate”—which is frankly a little rich coming from a guy who once suggested injecting disinfectant into our veins. Seriously, Donald, maybe check the meatloaf recipe before calling someone else degenerate!
The Labeling Game
When Vice President Kamala Harris was asked during a CNN town hall in the land of cheesesteaks and swing voters—Pennsylvania, for the uninitiated—if she agreed with Kelly, her answer was as quick as a snarky tweet: “Yes, I am. Yes, I believe it.” Well, there’s clear conviction! It’s kind of like a referee calling a penalty; nobody’s surprised, but you still have to decide how to respond!
Kelly, bless his analytical heart, pulled out the dictionary with the finesse of a high school debate team. He defined fascism as “an authoritarian and ultra-nationalist far-right ideology”—an echoing sentiment of a cheerleader rallying her team before the big game. And here’s Trump’s playbook: centralized autocracy, militarism, and the *forcible suppression of opposition*. Sounds like a sinister kitchen appliance, doesn’t it?
Military Matters
But what’s more fascinating—pun intended—is Trump’s suggestion during his glorious reign that he’d be happy to evaluate the military against Democrats he perceives as *enemies within*. Ah yes, ‘Democrats,’—the real boogeyman for his fan base. It’s refreshing to note that using the military to break up protests is considered… well, *cute* by some of his defenders. Just good old hyperbole, right? Nothing fascist about it—just like shouting “fire” in a crowded theatre is merely an enthusiastic recommendation!
And speaking of domestic altercations, General Mark Milley, who seemed to have the tactical perspective of a chess grandmaster, blatantly told Trump ‘not today’ during a moment that could only be described as a game of tug-of-war with the Constitution. Meanwhile, Trump blithely wigged out at the suggestion of firing special counsel Jack Smith faster than you can say “obstruction of justice.” Oh, the irony is delectable, like a chocolate éclair with a hint of chaos!
When the Politics of Fear Meets Reality
As for the threat of “purging the government,” it’s as dramatic as a soap opera’s season finale. If Trump gets elected, he’s got a *very* specific hit list that could rival the most unscrupulous of sitcom villains. You don’t need to be a political analyst to see that this is straight-up reminiscent of certain historical autocrats—not to drop names, but one rhymes with *Mussolini* and another can be found on children’s history books everywhere: Hitler!
Now, I realize calling someone a fascist in American politics is akin to yelling “fire” in a crowded political debate—it’s bound to create a frenzy! Kamala might have thrown the fascism card down like it was blackjack, but what do we do with that deck? Play a game of ‘facts first’ or ‘how to win friends and influence voters’?
The S-word: Surrealism
Here’s something deliciously surreal: despite Trump’s potent rhetoric that would make the most hardened conservative give a pause, if he’s victorious in November, we must face the possibility that a significant chunk of the American populace will nod and say “Yes, this is the direction I want!” Like watching a car crash—it’s horrific, yet you can’t take your eyes off it.
Historians and political experts are weighing in with all kinds of comparisons, theories, and counter-theories. It’s like a debate club gone wild! There’s even plenty of ink spilled over whether *fascism* is applicable in the age of Trump—some say yes, some say no. The consensus? Well, it’s as muddled as a toddler’s finger painting—beautifully chaotic!
The Great Divide
As the political landscape reshapes, Democrats feel the heat. All this rhetoric about fascism, while once relegated to the back pages, has now emerged to center stage. It’s a bit of a spicy narrative, isn’t it? Harris tries to warn of fascism while Trump insists she’s a “Marxist.” Talk about political irony! If this were a sitcom, the ratings would be through the roof!
So here we are, playing political chicken amidst a fractured narrative and the looming 2024 elections. Will Trump wear the ‘fascist’ badge like a Boy Scout with a shiny badge or will it be a fleeting label that vanishes faster than a promise at a political rally? Buckle up, folks! It’s going to be an exhilarating ride!
(CNN) – Fascism is a dirty word in American politics, so when former President Donald Trump’s former secretary general, retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, says Trump fits the definition of “fascist,” it makes headlines. .
This places Trump’s name in the same ideological space as the most infamous fascists, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. Trump has rejected the idea and called Kelly “degenerate.”
Asked at a CNN town hall in the battleground state of Pennsylvania if she agreed with Kelly that Trump is a fascist, Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris didn’t hesitate.
“Yes, I am. Yes, I believe it,” he said.
Kelly pointed out to The New York Times a definition of fascism: “It is an authoritarian and ultra-nationalist far-right ideology and political movement characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy.”
“So certainly, in my experience, those are the kinds of things that he thinks would work best in terms of running the United States,” Kelly said.
Kelly added that Trump is in the “far-right zone” and “admires people who are dictators,” which in Kelly’s opinion places Trump in “the general definition of a fascist.”
There are current arguments that support Kelly. Trump’s suggestion that he could use the military against an “enemy within,” which he says includes Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and California’s Adam Schiff, certainly sounds fascist. His Republican defenders argue that it is just hyperbole.
Trump wanted to use the military to break up domestic protests when he was in office, something his top general at the time, then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, reportedly rejected in 2021. Milley also compared in private Trump’s electoral denialism with Hitler’s “big lie.”
Even if he has no intention of using the military against Democrats, he has a history of trying to use the military to quell protests in the US, threatening to silence dissent.
Trump recently said he would fire special counsel Jack Smith “in less than two seconds” if he wins the election, which seems obvious since Smith has accused Trump in cases of election interference and mishandling of classified documents.
The election interference case has been postponed until after the election, and another judge dismissed the classified documents case, although Smith has already filed an appeal.
Trump has a history of firing officials who question him. He fired James Comey, the director of the FBI, when he was president. He fired his first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, after not forgiving him for appointing a special prosecutor to investigate possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 election.
Trump and his allies have referred to special counsel Robert Mueller’s resulting report so many times as the “Russia hoax” that most Americans probably don’t remember that Mueller did not exonerate Trump of obstruction of justice in the report. Mueller identified multiple contacts between the Trump campaign and the Russians in 2016, a time when the Russians were actively trying to help the Trump campaign. Mueller concluded that the contacts did not rise to the level of conspiracy.
Trump’s second attorney general, Bill Barr, delayed the release of Mueller’s report to dilute its impact. Barr would later leave the Trump administration after the 2020 election after refusing to support Trump’s unsupported conspiracy theories about election interference.
Democrats wonder who would be left to moderate Trump’s impulses if he is re-elected.
Purging the Government
If he wins the election, Trump has promised to do more to go to war against what he perceives as a “deep state” of bureaucrats in the Justice Department, the FBI and the Pentagon.
He has also suggested he would use the justice system to prosecute election officials.
All this points in favor of at least a thematic alignment with some elements of fascism, built around a strong leader and where dissidence in the Government is ruled out. However, there may also be more to fascism, such as complete control of the German economy and society. Trump has not suggested anything like that.
While Harris is only now beginning to label Trump a fascist, he has called her a Marxist throughout the presidential campaign, referring to her as “Comrade Kamala.” That is clearly not true, since Harris supports private property.
In June, Trump called the United States a “fascist state” while promoting the baseless conspiracy theory that President Joe Biden was behind his prosecution in New York for falsifying business records related to hush money payments paid on behalf of Trump to a porn star in 2016.
I delved into the definition of fascism and how it applied to Trump back in June, when he was using the term.
There are experts who see Trump as a fascist. Robert Paxton, a professor emeritus at Columbia University who has written extensively about fascism in Europe, rejected the label for Trump until January 6, 2021, when the historian argued that the image of trump supporters storming the US Capitol “eliminates my objection to the fascist label.”
Trump has also repeatedly used language that may be linked to Nazis, such as when he said immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of the country.
When CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked Ohio Senator JD Vance in May about Trump’s claim that the US is a “fascist state,” Vance did not reject the idea, suggesting at least a tolerance for the term.
“I don’t care what you call this, but this is not the America I know and love,” Vance, who was not yet Trump’s running mate, said in a tense exchange.
In June, I also spoke with Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins, an assistant professor at Wesleyan University and editor of the book “Did it happen here? Perspectives on Fascism and the United States”which includes writings by Paxton, among many others.
“That historical comparison model where we look at what happened in Germany in the 1930s and then use it as a kind of navigation device or map to understand what’s happening today is quite common,” he said, although there are arguments that it is a flawed comparison.
“Concepts do not have timeless essences that we can simply map onto any phenomenon, but rather they change given the political context, given the power structures in society,” he said.
Today, he said, the term “fascism” is used “to mobilize people to overcome their divisions, to defeat an enemy that is much bigger than their own long-standing disputes.”
Steinmetz-Jenkins argued that there is a long history, dating back to Franklin D. Roosevelt, of Americans on both sides of the political spectrum trying to label their opponents “fascists,” and there are also examples of American lawmakers threatening their opponents with research.
There are arguments for the comparison to fascism, but also arguments against it, particularly as there are echoes of Trump’s rise in populist and white nationalist movements closer to home in American history.
I returned to Steinmetz-Jenkins to ask if the comparisons have changed in the intervening months, and she noted that the debate over fascism died down over the summer, with Harris replacing Biden, and noted that for most of Harris’ campaign, a message of the politics of joy replaced the fear of fascism.
Now, as Democrats grow anxious about losing to Trump, the threat of fascism has returned to the forefront.
“What is needed is a plan to inspire people to vote Democratic, not scare tactics that can lead to a sense of fatalism that the world is being engulfed by fascism,” he said.
Enough American voters have heard the term “fascism” in the same sentence as Trump that if he wins in November, it will be clear that they are at least willing to tolerate him or don’t believe he will carry out what he says.
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Us about Trump’s potential re-election and his past behavior, discussions around the term “fascism” are resurfacing. The term is laden with historical significance, and its application to contemporary figures like Trump raises questions about the nature of authoritarianism in modern politics.
Analysts like Robert Paxton, who have long studied fascism, have expressed varied opinions about whether Trump fits this label. His actions and rhetoric—such as his confrontations with governmental institutions and the promotion of conspiracy theories—have drawn parallels to fascist tendencies. Yet, as noted, the extent of these similarities is still debated, particularly given the lack of a comprehensive program that resembles historical fascist regimes.
Some scholars caution against oversimplification, suggesting that comparing contemporary politics to the fascism of the early 20th century can obscure the complexities of the current political landscape. The implications of labeling a political figure as fascist can mobilize opposition and heighten political tensions, thereby complicating discourse.
As the 2024 election approaches, both sides of the political spectrum are using historical references, including accusations of fascism, to frame their opponents—demonstrating a longstanding practice in American politics. Whether or not these labels hold true, they influence the public’s perception and the strategies parties employ in their campaigns.
In this charged political environment, it’s crucial for voters to engage with these discussions critically, acknowledging the historical context of such terms while being mindful of their usage in modern rhetoric. Understanding the nuances and implications of these comparisons could provide insights into the direction of American politics in the coming years.
