"Is Donald Trump a Fascist? Part 2 of Interview with Robert Paxton, Father of Fascism Studies [... to bottom] ROBERT PAXTON: He did attack the pope. The content of what he says is utterly irrelevant. It’s the style. It’s the sort of image he projects of being an outsider, a nonpolitician, who’s going to use force and fix it for us. And that seems to be unshakable. And that’s something new. That’s a surprise."
A Yale philosopher on fascism, truth, and Donald Trump.
By Sean Illing@seanillingsean.illing@vox.com Sep 19, 2018, 8:10am EDT
Nearly 100,000 Nazi storm troopers are gathered to listen to a 1933 speech by Adolf Hitler on “Brown Shirt Day.” Shutterstock
“Fascism” is a word that gets tossed around pretty loosely these days, usually as an epithet to discredit someone else’s politics.
One consequence is that no one really knows what the term means anymore. Liberals see fascism as the culmination of conservative thinking: an authoritarian, nationalist, and racist system of government organized around corporate power. For conservatives, fascism is totalitarianism masquerading as the nanny state.
A lightly edited transcript of our conversation follows.
Sean Illing
Almost everyone means something different when they use the word “fascism.” What do you mean by it?
Jason Stanley
I think of fascism as a method of politics. It’s a rhetoric, a way of running for power. Of course, that’s connected to fascist ideology, because fascist ideology centers on power. But I really see fascism as a technique to gain power.
People are always asking, “Is such-and-such politician really a fascist?” Which is really just another way of asking if this person has a particular set of beliefs or an ideology, but again, I don’t really think of a fascist as someone who holds a set of beliefs. They’re using a certain technique to acquire and retain power.
Sean Illing
So fascism isn’t a discrete category — it’s a spectrum? Or a sliding scale?
Jason Stanley
Right. And my book identifies the various techniques that fascists tend to adopt, and shows how someone can be more fascist or less fascist in their politics. The key thing is that fascist politics is about identifying enemies, appealing to the in-group (usually the majority group), and smashing truth and replacing it with power.
"“Freedom requires truth, and so to smash freedom you must smash truth”"
Sean Illing
We’ll get into some more of those techniques, but I’m curious why you think fascism is so hard to pin down as an ideology. People on the left see fascism as the endpoint of right-wing reactionary thinking, and people on the right see fascism as nanny-state totalitarianism. Obviously, it can’t be both of these things.
Jason Stanley
I think it’s clearly right-wing. Part of the problem is that “right” and “left” are tricky to talk about, and it’s true that there are dangerous forms of extremism on both sides, but fascism tilts pretty heavily to the right in my view.
If you think about fascism as a sliding scale, ordinary conservative politics is going to find itself somewhere on that scale — which is not to say that it’s fascist at all, any more than ordinary Democratic politics is communist. But just as extreme versions of communism suppress liberty on behalf of radical equality, so too do extreme versions of right-wing politics, namely fascism, suppress liberty in favor of tradition and dominance and power.
Sean Illing
Your specialty is propaganda and rhetoric, and in the book you describe fascism as a collection of tropes and narratives. So what, exactly, is the story fascists are spinning? Jason Stanley
In the past, fascist politics would focus on the dominant cultural group. The goal is to make them feel like victims, to make them feel like they’ve lost something and that the thing they’ve lost has been taken from them by a specific enemy, usually some minority out-group or some opposing nation.
This is why fascism flourishes in moments of great anxiety, because you can connect that anxiety with fake loss. The story is typically that a once-great society has been destroyed by liberalism or feminism or cultural Marxism or whatever, and you make the dominant group feel angry and resentful about the loss of their status and power. Almost every manifestation of fascism mirrors this general narrative.
"“We’re not on the brink of some fascist takeover. But there are reasons to be concerned, and we should always be on guard — that’s the lesson of history.”"
Why is the destruction of truth, as a shared ideal, so critical to the fascist project?
Jason Stanley
It’s important because truth is the heart of liberal democracy. The two ideals of liberal democracy are liberty and equality. If your belief system is shot through with lies, you’re not free. Nobody thinks of the citizens of North Korea as free, because their actions are controlled by lies.
Truth is required to act freely. Freedom requires knowledge, and in order to act freely in the world, you need to know what the world is and know what you’re doing. You only know what you’re doing if you have access to the truth. So freedom requires truth, and so to smash freedom you must smash truth.
I think that’s right. Part of what fascist politics does is get people to disassociate from reality. You get them to sign on to this fantasy version of reality, usually a nationalist narrative about the decline of the country and the need for a strong leader to return it to greatness, and from then on their anchor isn’t the world around them — it’s the leader.
Sean Illing
This is partly why I think of fascism as a kind of anti-politics. I remember reading a quote from Joseph Goebbels .. https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1975/02/06/fascinating-fascism/ , who was the chief propagandist for the Nazis, and he said that what he was doing was more like art than politics. By which he meant their task was to create an alternative mythical reality for Germans that was more exciting and purposeful than the humdrum reality of liberal democratic politics, and that’s why mass media was so essential the rise of Nazism.
Jason Stanley
That’s so interesting. The thing is, people willingly adopt the mythical past. Fascists are always telling a story about a glorious past that’s been lost, and they tap into this nostalgia. So when you fight back against fascism, you’ve got one hand tied behind your back, because the truth is messy and complex and the mythical story is always clear and compelling and entertaining. It’s hard to undercut that with facts.
Sean Illing
This is probably a good time to pivot to the glittering elephant in the room: Donald Trump. Is he a fascist?
Jason Stanley
I make the case in my book that he practices fascist politics. Now, that doesn’t mean his government is a fascist government. For one thing, I think it’s very difficult to say what a fascist government is.
For another thing, I think the current movement of leaders who use these techniques (Vladimir Putin in Russia, Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey, Viktor Orbán in Hungary .. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/9/13/17823488/hungary-democracy-authoritarianism-trump , to name a few) all seek to keep the trappings of democratic institutions, but their goal is to reorient them around their own cult of personality.
Again, I wouldn’t claim — not yet, at least — that Trump is presiding over a fascist government, but he is very clearly using fascist techniques to excite his base and erode liberal democratic institutions, and that’s very troubling.
But the blame there is as much on the Republican Party as it is on Trump, because none of this would matter if they were willing to check Trump. So far, they’ve chosen loyalty to Trump over loyalty to rule of law.
"“Part of what fascist politics does is get people to disassociate from reality”"
Sean Illing
In the book, you imply that there’s something inherently fascist about American politics, or at the very least that fascism has always been a latent force in America. Can you elaborate on that?
The 1920s and the 1930s was a very fascist time in the United States. You’ve got very patriarchal family values and a politics of resentment aimed at black Americans and other groups as internal threats, and this gets exported to Europe.
So we have a long history of genocide against native peoples and anti-black racism and anti-immigration hysteria, and at the same time there’s a strain of American exceptionalism, which manifests as a kind of mythological history and encourages Americans to think of their own country as a unique force for good.
This doesn’t make America a fascist country, but all of these ingredients are easily channeled into a fascist politics.
Sean Illing
And yet at the same time there are countervailing forces that push us in the opposite direction, and so America exists in this perpetual tension between liberal democracy and reactionary fascism.
Jason Stanley
Absolutely. America is exceptional in good ways as well.
We have an exceptional devotion to liberty and equality, as embodied in our struggle for civil rights and our fight against fascism in World War II. I’m corny about these things, and I believe America has had truly great moments and has made a lot of progress.
But, as you said, the fascist threat is always lurking, and we just have to be aware of it.
Sean Illing
What does your book have to say about the way forward? If we are indeed threatened by fascist movements, both here and abroad, what can citizens and governments do about it?
Jason Stanley
We should heed the warning of the poem on the side of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum .. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/martin-niemoeller-first-they-came-for-the-socialists , which says, “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not Jewish. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me.” At a certain point it’s too late.
We learned first from that poem who the targets are. The targets are leftists, minorities, labor unions, and anyone or any institution that isn’t glorified in the fascist narrative. And even if you’re not in any of those groups, you have to protect those who are, and you have to protect them from the very beginning. Simple acts of courage early on will save you impossible acts of courage later.
To be clear, this isn’t alarmist. We’re not on the brink of some fascist takeover. But there are reasons to be concerned, and we should always be on guard — that’s the lesson of history. Our weapons are our high ideals of liberty and equality, and we have to fight to keep those American ideals.
We’re fortunate enough to have liberty and equality baked into our founding ideals. We have a long history of people appealing to those ideals and saying, “We might disagree on a number of things but we agree that truth, liberty, equality are things we stand up for.” So whatever happens, we have to continually double down on those ideals — that’s what will save us.
"Is Donald Trump a Fascist? Part 2 of Interview with Robert Paxton, Father of Fascism Studies [...] Professor Paxton, thanks for staying with us for Part 2 of this conversation. Have you been surprised by the rise and the popularity of Donald Trump? ROBERT PAXTON: Totally surprised. Not so very long ago, Trump was a guaranteed laugh line. He was considered a buffoon. All you had to do was to show the hair and call him “The Donald,” and everyone kind of snickered. And suddenly he’s this—he’s this immense power. He’s touched the nerve with his style, which has fascist overtones, encouraging violence, attacking the internal enemy and so forth, saying that the system is rotten and it needs an outsider to fix it, which is a fascist kind of appeal—make Germany great, make America great. Suddenly he’s touched a nerve, and for millions of people he is suddenly seen taken more than seriously. And that’s a strange flip. That’s a strange transformation."
Andrew Gawthorpe
Trump’s persistent hold on his base shows the power to be had in reinventing anti-American values as patriotic
Wed 31 Jul 2019 20.00 AEST Last modified on Thu 1 Aug 2019 02.11 AEST
‘The word fascist deserves its place in the political vocabulary of our time, not as a description of the present, but as a foreboding of one possible dark future.’ Photograph: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images
Amid the global rise of rightwing populism, “fascist” has become a common – indeed over-used – epithet. The F-word is convenient for critics of the new wave of populism, seeking as it does to tie their opponents to historical movements which nearly all of mainstream society regards as deplorable. But the word is convenient for the right too, allowing them to wave away their critics as overwrought and deranged while avoiding serious discussion of the substance of their policies and rhetoric.
Even the Trumpified Republican party is not a fascist movement and Trump is certainly no Hitler. Full-blown fascism usually emerges under the pressure of economic collapse or existential war, but it is constructed from pre-existing social and political raw materials. But while the Trump era hasn’t seen the rise of a true fascism in the United States, it has given us sharp and painful insights into the raw materials out of which a future American fascism might be constructed.
Any fascism of the future will be different from that of the 20th century. But it will have to share features with its forebears, including ultranationalism, illiberalism, a strong impulse to regiment society, and the forcible suppression of opposition. This fascism would, in other words, cut against what most Americans still recognize – even if only to give lip service to – as the core values of their nation.
Yet Trump’s persistent hold on his base shows how a coalition against characteristically American values may be constructed and used to hold power, even if the coalition represents only a minority of the country. In particular, Trump appeals to two overlapping groups – white evangelicals and white voters motivated primarily by opposition to racial and cultural change – who each have their own reasons to embrace illiberalism and endorse the power of an illiberal state being used against their enemies.
What these groups share is a belief that their very existence is threatened. Evangelical Christian support for Trump .. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/11/trump-administration-evangelical-influence-support .. is often motivated by the fear that secular liberals are seeking to crush Christianity and banish it from the land. Such a fear lends itself to support for an authoritarian who will crush the opposition before it gets a chance to strike first. Trump has shown that evangelicals will support anyone who even pretends to care about their motivating issues – abortion, Jerusalem, religious freedom – regardless of his obvious repugnance by any normal understanding of Christian values.
This ideology’s beating heart will be a white nationalism motivated by a belief that the “true” (read: white) America is under siege from a combination of racial minorities and liberal elites. This conspiratorial worldview likewise lends itself to a support for using state power against these enemies of the people. For the future, the fact that Trump has generally been rather incompetent and unfocused at dismantling liberal democratic norms and institutions is less important than the fact that so many of his rank-and-file supporters clearly relish the idea that he might.
Some conservative thinkers have begun to lay the intellectual groundwork for the dismantling of liberalism in order to save values they consider more important, be these the defense of their version of Christian values or the defense of white cultural and political power. Among the more extreme is the Catholic writer Sorab Ahmari, who recently argued .. https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2019/05/against-david-french-ism .. that liberalism is no longer compatible with Christianity and that the public square should be reorganized in pursuit of “the Highest Good”. Many other conservative writers are all too willing to excuse Trump’s illiberalism and racism by arguing that Trump’s enemies represent a much greater threat to their values than he does.
The scribblings of such writers are less important for the ideas they contain than for their realization that we live in a moment in which it has become possible to imagine an illiberal America, and their flirtation with the forces which might take us there. Illiberal intellectuals are starting to see the Trump movement as a force to be harnessed in pursuit of undemocratic ends. We don’t yet know the limit of what those chanting people at Trump rallies who say they want to lock people up and send them away would tolerate in practice. But we should be afraid to find out.
An American fascism would not only marry Christianity and ultranationalism through a shared belief in conspiracies aiming to destroy America, but it would also seek to retain the support of capital. Trump has demonstrated how to combine regressive economic policies with a populist image by attacking minorities and elites. Anyone promoting progressive economic reform is dismissed as a communist and hence as un-American – another one of the conspirators, and another reason to line up behind a strongman who will keep them out of power. This is why “the Squad”, who in the worldview of the right are both communists and America-hating brown people, are the perfect foil.
These are the raw materials out of which a future American fascism might be built. Such an eventuality is not only uncertain, but positively unlikely, especially in the absence of economic disaster, major war, or a devastating terrorist attack. But it is no longer unimaginable, and it will become even less so if white, Christian America continues to react to its loss of power in the same way. For this reason, the word fascist deserves its place in the political vocabulary of our time, not as a description of the present, but as a foreboding of one possible dark future.
Andrew Gawthorpe is a lecturer in history and international studies at Leiden University in the Netherlands
"Is Donald Trump a Fascist? Part 2 of Interview with Robert Paxton, Father of Fascism Studies"
Bumped into this while worrying about Putin's problems, chuckle (inside Trump's head) and though it feels odd posting from this site, from a non-expert view it looks to deserve being here.
8 Answers
Luke Drace, Love history more than any topic Answered October 27, 2016 · Upvoted by Jaris Almazani, studied History & Social Sciences at Al-Azhar Syifa Budi (2018)
Yes, the USSR was a far left state, but politics aren't so simple, they never are. What you're missing is the other axis of the spectrum:
The political spectrum isn't so simple as left and right. Instead, in this model, there are two axis. The left-right axis and the authoritarian-libertarian axis. Groups and people higher up support a strong central government, while those lower support more popular control. People on the left want a controlled economy, and those on the right want a free economy.
So where are Democrats? Republicans? The USSR?
I like this representation personally, though some might disagree, which is perfectly valid.
The US Democrats fall under liberalism, right in the center. This is because they support a free market economy, but also support welfare and strong regulations on businesses. As for the Y axis, they support most social freedoms of expression, and are strongly anti-racism, but support the federal government and prohibition of drugs and guns.
The founders of the USSR were center left, the box labeled Socialism. They wanted a democracy with an economy run completely by the government. Unfortunately for the citizens of Soviet Russia, the democracy became a one party system. In the US, it would be like if your only option was the democrats, or your only option was the republicans. The Bolshevik party consolidated their power and by the time Lenin retired, Stalin became essentially a dictator. That places the USSR dangerously close to the top left corner. Retaining a completely government run economy, now the USSR also had an absolute government who would not tolerate criticism.
I hope that explains everything somewhat, but keep in mind that the two axis model isn't perfect, as some other political beliefs can't really fit.
An example of this is anarcho-transhumanism, which holds that extreme technological progress can create a utopia where government is unnecessary. Technically you can put this at the bottom right but then there's anarcho-primitivism, which holds the exact opposite; that technology should be abandoned and we should return to hunter gathering. Think Amish: extreme edition. They also belong in the bottom right but are completely different from anarcho-transhumanists who appear in the same spot.
Some other explanations if you're still having trouble:
The Republican Party is in the conservative box because they support a regulation free economy but also support more traditional social structures.
Hitler is in the very top center, and Mussolini sits to his right.
The 10th to 18th century kings are in the box called fundamentalism.
Those spooky ‘socialist’ European countries are closer to left libertarianism, activism, or democratic socialism. It varies depending on the country obviously.
The classic hippie-pacifists who want a conflict free society where everyone lives in harmony? We call them anarcho-collectivist.
You should get the idea by now. I recommend you take one of the many political compass tests out there, see where you stand and where your political candidates might stand.
The US labeling of who is left or right is quite weird. Issues like LGBT rights, abortions and capital punishment were not considered political in the USSR at all. All these things were either legal or illegal in the USSR at different times.
If anything, the pro-gay attitude was considered more right wing because pro-gay activists were usually pro-Western, bohème-connected and alien to the interests of the worker class.
I also want to warn you that in most of Europe “liberal” means right-wing, the US meaning of “leberal” as “left-wing” is specific to the USA and is not undestandable globally. So, the USSR was never liberal and never claimed they were liberal.
In European (and Soviet) view, liberalism is to the left of fascism and monarchism, but to the right of social democracy, who in turn is right of communism. In other words, liberalism is associated with capitalism, free market and the interests of the rich.
"Is Donald Trump a Fascist? Part 2 of Interview with Robert Paxton, Father of Fascism Studies [...] Have you been surprised by the rise and the popularity of Donald Trump?
ROBERT PAXTON: Totally surprised. Not so very long ago, Trump was a guaranteed laugh line. He was considered a buffoon. All you had to do was to show the hair and call him “The Donald,” and everyone kind of snickered. And suddenly he’s this—he’s this immense power. He’s touched the nerve with his style, which has fascist overtones, encouraging violence, attacking the internal enemy and so forth, saying that the system is rotten and it needs an outsider to fix it, which is a fascist kind of appeal—make Germany great, make America great. Suddenly he’s touched a nerve, and for millions of people he is suddenly seen taken more than seriously. And that’s a strange flip. That’s a strange transformation. P - AMY GOODMAN: What is this nerve that he’s tapped? P - ROBERT PAXTON: Well, I think people are driven absolutely wild, people who are not doing well in this economy. The recovery is incomplete, it’s partial. And there’s many people who are doing extremely well or fairly well, and then there are a group of people who can’t get jobs because they’re not sufficiently educated in technology, whose wages are stagnant, and they’re driven wild by this disparity. So— P - AMY GOODMAN: I mean, talking about disparity, you have—what did the study show? Something like 63 of the world’s richest people have more wealth than three-and-a-half billion people. And 42 of them are right here in the United States. P - ROBERT PAXTON: Yes, and it’s ironic that Trump is one of them, and somehow he’s seen as the outsider who will fix it. But I think there’s this bitterness that suddenly, with his—with his aggressive style, which recalls Mussolini and so forth, he’s suddenly seen to them as some kind of savior. And I think that transformation—a year ago, they would have laughed at him. Now, suddenly, he’s seen as a savior. I think that’s absolutely astonishing and, I guess, a tribute to the power of social media and suggestion and crowd behavior. It’s very strange."
Related: [...] Biden calls Trump's philosophy 'semi-fascism' https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=170364777 .. and .. “David Corn’s AMERICAN PSYCHOSIS is essential reading for anyone hoping to restore political sanity in America. He argues convincingly that the toxic brew of bigotry, conspiracy theories, and lies that define Trumpism started long before Trump. P - Corn chronicles the Republican Party’s decades-long slide into the gutter and weaves this investigative history into a compelling narrative that is equal parts horrifying and entertaining. Corn has managed to make brilliant sense of American senselessness.”?Jane Mayer, author of Dark Money https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=170336196
There may be more.
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Editor’s note: These two columns by David Corn first appeared in his newsletter, Our Land. But we wanted to make sure as many readers as possible have a chance to see them. Our Land is written by David twice a week and provides behind-the-scenes stories about politics and media; his unvarnished take on the events of the day; film, book, television, podcast, and music recommendations; interactive audience features; and more. Subscribing costs just $5 a month—but you can sign up for a free 30-day trial of Our Land here. Please check it out. And please also check out David’s new book: American Psychosis: A Historical Investigation of How the Republican Party Went Crazy .. https://www.amazon.com/American-Psychosis-Investigation-Republican-Party/dp/1538723050 .
Donald Trump and Snowflake Fascism
Donald Trump recently issued a statement on his struggling TRUTH Social platform: “Why are people so mean?” This came in the middle of a conservative crusade to depict liberals and Democrats as nasty folks. Trump’s remark captured the absurdity of this campaign. The fellow who routinely assails political foes and critics as “losers,” whose misogynistic history of denigrating women is unparalleled in American public life, who rose to the top of the GOP pile by disparaging the physical appearances of his opponents (and, in one case, the wife of an opponent), who railed against Muslims and “shithole countries,” who called for locking up his political rival, who worships revenge .. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/donald-trump-obsessed-with-revenge/?utm_source=mj-newsletters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-newsletter-09-02-2022 .. and lives on spite, who denounced journalists as “the enemy of the people,” who relishes conjuring up ugly and dismissive nicknames for his political adversaries, whose entire political project is built upon denigration and vilification—this guy complains about people being mean? And this list does not include his incitement of an insurrectionist riot or his attempt to destroy the foundation of American democracy.
A Republican National Committee spokesperson howled that Biden’s comment was “despicable.” New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu exclaimed that it was “horribly inappropriate” and urged Biden to apologize. Sen. Ted Cruz tweeted that “communists have always called their enemies ‘fascists.’” (Biden is a communist?) But what to call a movement that denies election results, falsely claims an election was stolen, and refuses to admonish or excommunicate a leader who encouraged and used violence in his effort to overturn that election? In a flurry of unhinged tweets this week, Trump demanded his restoration to the presidency (a move impossible under the Constitution) and hinted that the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago might spur his supporters to violence. That all sounds a bit fascist-ish.
Trump and his cultists are masters at the I’m-rubber-you’re-glue form of name-calling. Each day, I receive a bunch of fundraising emails from Trump or other Republicans lambasting evil Democrats as radical socialists or communists pursuing devious plots to purposefully destroy America. In a recent request for money, Sen. Marco Rubio, citing the FBI raid, railed that the Biden administration was comparable to “Marxist dictatorships.” (As the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Rubio ought to care about the handling of the intelligence community’s secrets. Yet he pounded the FBI for the raid, claiming in MAGA-like fashion that the bureau was “doing more to erode public trust in our government institutions, the electoral process, and the rule of law in the US than the Russian Federation or any other foreign adversary.”) During the 2020 campaign, Trump asserted that Biden was in league with antifa, Marxists, looters, anarchists, Black Lives Matter, terrorists, and radicals to demolish America’s suburbs, where a law-abiding citizen could easily become the victim of a “very tough hombre.” (Not too subtle, eh?) He portrayed Biden as an ally of “far-left fascism.” For decades, the GOP has depicted Democrats as an anti-American force (commies! radicals! subversives!) actively scheming to wreck the nation. Now they cry foul?
Did Mandel forget that in the years prior to the 2012 campaign, Republicans and conservatives regularly accused Barack Obama of being a secret Muslim socialist who despised the United States and was conspiring to ruin the nation? Did she not watch the Tea Party rallies attended by John Boehner, then the top House Republican, where the crowd cried out, “Nazis! Nazis,” when Democrats were mentioned? Did she never view Glenn Beck on Fox, as he claimed the Obama administration was creating concentration camps and prominent Republicans appeared on his show to validate his conspiratorial lunacy? Nothing said about Romney matched the right-wing vitriol hurled at Obama. (At McCain-Palin rallies in 2008, Republican voters shouted out that Obama should be killed.) And also: Rush Limbaugh. By the way, Romney embraced this guy named Trump, the number-one birther.
On September 1, at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Biden again addressed the issue of MAGA extremism in a formal speech .. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/09/01/remarks-by-president-bidenon-the-continued-battle-for-the-soul-of-the-nation/?utm_source=mj-newsletters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-newsletter-09-02-2022 . Noting that not every Republican is a MAGA Republican—which is a charitable position these days—he declared, “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.” He put it simply: “MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution. They do not believe in the rule of law. They do not recognize the will of the people. They refuse to accept the results of a free election. And they’re working right now, as I speak, in state after state to give power to decide elections in America to partisans and cronies, empowering election deniers to undermine democracy itself….They promote authoritarian leaders, and they fan the flames of political violence.” Factcheck: True. Biden did not use the F-word, but he fully and passionately explained how Trumpism presents a profound danger to the nation.
And this, too, triggered the Trumpers. Mercedes Schlapp, a former Trump White House official, exclaimed .. https://twitter.com/mercedesschlapp/status/1565530451208462339?utm_source=mj-newsletters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-newsletter-09-02-2022 , “No Republican can feel safe in Biden’s America.” (Ask the 150 cops who were brutally assaulted by MAGAites at the US Capitol.) In pro-Trump internet forums, Biden was cast as Hitler. Ari Fleischer, the onetime White House press secretary who helped the Bush-Cheney administration lie the United States into the Iraq war, slammed Biden as “the most divisive, over the top, rhetorically vile, bumbling, inarticulate president in history.” Did Fleischer just wake up from a five-year coma? What’s more divisive than inciting political violence and purposefully doing nothing to stop it because it benefits you?
Last issue, I wrote about the “snowflake fascism .. https://link.motherjones.com/public/28924992 ” of Republicans and conservatives. As I explained, Donald Trump and his cultists have long demonized liberals and Democrats, often calling them fascists (or subversives and enemies of America), but now they clutch pearls and express outrage when President Joe Biden warns that baselessly challenging and refusing to accept election results and inciting (or downplaying or dismissing) a violent insurrectionist attack that attempted to overthrow democracy should be seen as “semi-fascism.” This is obviously a disinformation tactic adopted by MAGA Republicans, and it is being deployed in tandem with another propaganda tool: gaslight fascism.
This is when authoritarians deny their own efforts to impose an authoritarian regime. The GOP has been engaged in gaslight fascism since the January 6 riot, refusing to fully acknowledge the assault for what it was: a rampage of domestic terrorists who had been directed by Trump toward the Capitol and who tried to obstruct the peaceful transfer of power. With Biden raising the stakes by calling out MAGA Republicans as a fascistic force, these gaslighting efforts appear to have intensified. Which makes sense: The raid on the Capitol and the GOP’s subsequent refusal to disavow the man who sparked this violence (and who this past week said he would consider “full pardons .. https://news.yahoo.com/trump-floats-full-pardons-for-jan-6-rioters-while-biden-emphasizes-rule-of-law-181257312.html?utm_source=mj-newsletters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-newsletter-09-07-2022 ” for convicted January 6 rioters, should he again be elected to the White House) are key components of Biden’s compelling case for labeling the MAGA GOP a threat to the nation. To counter Biden and to claim that he (not Trump) is the divisive force in American politics—Trump called Biden an “enemy of the state” at a rally in Pennsylvania this weekend—MAGA-ites cannot admit the reality of January 6 and Trump’s various schemes and actions to sabotage the 2020 election.
This was full-scale denialism—so extreme as to be absurd. But this is how fascists and authoritarians debate. There is no real truth; there is only the self-serving truth they can concoct and enforce. George Orwell knew this. In 1984, what is the apotheosis of the Party’s desire to create a false reality? “In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it,” Orwell wrote. “It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it.”
Trump fascists have been trying to do the same with the 2020 election: conjure an alternative reality untethered from confirmed facts and declare it to be the party’s truth. And in a two-plus-two-equals-five way, they transform a democracy-threatening authoritarian force into patriotic defenders of democracy. Grenell was casting the Big Lie brownshirts as heroic dissenters, not fascist thugs. More disturbing was that a pack of Grenell’s tweeps chimed in with assorted lies and distortions about the 2020 election and January 6. They were drowning in the Kool-Aid served by Trump, Grenell, and their co-conspirators.
The reality of Trump’s conniving to subvert the republic cannot be recognized by leading Republicans. Doing so would create a dilemma for them. They would then have to explicitly declare themselves in favor of or opposed to this Trumpian war on democracy. They realize an outright expression of support for autocracy would not be good for the GOP, yet a declaration of opposition to the Trumpist assault on the Constitution would alienate any Republican from the party’s cult-like base. (See Liz Cheney.) To survive within the GOP, they must deny. They must say black is white. War is peace. Authoritarianism is democracy. That is the only way the party can now exist. The logic of their position demands it.
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