Also, Trumpism has nothing in common with Fascism as a political idea, so it’s being used as a content free insult.
For those who care about the meaning of words, Fascism was a “big government” and “organized labor” central-planning ideology. Trump may be populist, he may be dictatorial. He may even be racist, xenophobic, chauvinist, and personally and politically corrupt. Like Stalin and Mao. That doesn’t make any of them Fascist.
Trumpism has a lot in common with fascism.
Some of the elements of fascism include:
I’m probably missing some. But to say Trumpism has nothing in common with this (likely incomplete) list is not accurate at all. One might argue that Trumpism doesn’t have an element of state capitalism; however, this happens at stage 4 or 5 in the transition to a fascist state. It seems likely that the USA is currently at stage 2 or maybe stage 3.
“2. Rooting, where a fascist movement, aided by political deadlock and polarization, becomes a player on the national stage
3. Arrival to power, where conservatives seeking to control rising leftist opposition invite classical liberals (capitalist, conservative elite) to share power” [1]
Trumpism is a fascist movement. Trump himself may or may not be a fascist. He might be an accidental fascist, and has simply stumbled upon a fascist movement in the USA as a means to power, but consider that this is really bad. The most dangerous idea in the USA right now is the idea that there is no danger to American democracy.
[1] Anatomy of Fascism by Robert Paxton. Retrieved from Wikipedia. (Good book by the way, I strongly recommend it)
This is the right answer. It’s hard to imagine history NOT judging him better than he’s currently being judged.
Get me, I think he’s an amoral chucklehead with no defining interior compass at all beyond base passions. But history won’t see him that way. It’ll just see one more American president…more whack than most, but still just one more. It’ll speak more about the movement that elevated him than Trump himself.
Frankly I think comparisons between Trump and Hitler are overstated. Adolf Hitler is a major historical figure whose horrendous actions will be remembered for centuries even millennia. Donald Trump is not a major historical figure. Centuries from now, his name will be just another name in the history books with the average person only having a passing knowledge of who he was. At that point only historians will be debating what Donald Trump’s legacy is, if there is any.
I agree with this. Historically this period will be discussed as the rise or demise or American fascism.
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You forget that half of you morons (my relationship with the US goes no further than an expired green card) voted for the man. From over here it doesn’t look like too many people regret doing that. Sure, the other half might feel twice as regretful but the midterms have not shown a drastic decline in popularity for the Urangetan-in-Chief. The sad truth is that there is no indication that in the future Trump will be viewed any differently from other historical presidents, unless you let an outsider write your history or unless he does something drastic like gas a few million Mexicans. If it hadn’t been for the holocaust I am sure there would be Germans today saying “I voted for that man!”.
The best we can hope for is that in the future you all will look back at this time and say: “That is the time when we realized our democracy was broke and we started to fix it”.
Well, fair enough. But it’s not quite true to say that half of us supported him. In the 2016 election Trump got about 63 million votes. Against the US population that’s only 19.5% (based on 2016 population estimates).
The real part of our broken democracy is lack of participation. The fact that only the truly motivated - extremists on both sides - get around to voting.
Give Trump a little longer, and he could well get the USA into war, yet another war, and this time perhaps a big one.
IMHO, “NY-real-estate-developer style” is NOT what is needed in international negotiation at the present.
No big failures, no big successes? Give him time. But I predict that we will only see the former.
I heartily concur with the opinion expressed a few posts ago that none of the recent POTUS were much good. When it comes down to it, how far back do we have to go? Maybe Nixon was the last one who actually achieved much, despite is many flaws. His successors? Carter? Well meaning, but ineffectual. Reagan? His main achievement was prolonging the Cold War with platitudes when some knew that something was bubbling under in the Soviet Union. Bush I? A placeholder. Clinton? Got sidetracked by the scandals, but was otherwise a pretty OK placeholder. And then we have Dubya.
I see we get the usual “Trump is a fascist” line. Now you can check all the boxes for what makes a fascist state, and most of them simply apply to any totalitarian state. What makes fascism different is primarily two things: a populist ideology and a charismatic leader. Trump has no ideology, just deeply ingrained right wing attitudes. And narcissism is not the same as charisma. In fact, I would say (at a safe distance) that Trump has little charisma, and he is certainly not trying to fire up a cult of personality. If anything, perhaps he should be regarded as a nationalist demagogue. And he is not a populist, as he addresses only one section of society and is willing to alienate the rest. The fascist states took care to win over the masses and to alienate only a small minority that the teeming masses would be happy to jump on. Trump prefers to split the country down the middle, which in the end is a recipe for losing.
As a libertarian I didn’t care much for the policies of George, or Bill, or George II, or Barack, but I never had the perception that any of them didn’t have the best interests of this country and its citizens at heart, however misguided, and knew how to be presidential.
Donny Two-scoops* doesn’t give a goddamn about this country, its citizens, or anything else except himself. This includes his wife and kids who he would gladly throw under the bus if it would get him out of Mueller’s crosshairs. Anyone who thinks he brought to the office the gravitas it requires is delusional. Some people just like to watch the world burn – especially if they can make a buck off of it.
I won’t say he’s been the first in the Oval Office to arrive without a clue – I’m not sure any president for the past two generations had any but the roughest idea what the office was like when he arrived there – but he’s first who refuses to learn.
As for “His chaotic NY-real-estate-developer style may well be exactly what is needed in international negotiation at present and doesn’t appear to have done any harm,” I believe he has done harm that will take a generation or longer to repair. The UK, France, Germany, hell even Canada – any of our allies – are now viewing any agreements this country makes as being in force only until the next administration is in place. I’d bet those in power now will have to be long dead before that perception changes.
*He is the first president ever I refer to by epithet instead of his name.
There exists the traditional scenario in which the popularity of a president vastly increases after he suddenly leaves office carried by six men. Unlikely to happen, but it would probably work to an extent to rehabilitate his image posthumously.
It might not so much be that he’s deliberately doing fascist things, but that, when people point out he’s doing fascist things, he doesn’t see what’s so bad about that. Why shouldn’t the President be able to control reporters? Why shouldn’t the President be able to order criminal charges on anyone he wants? Why shouldn’t the President be allowed to make anyone he wants into a judge? Why shouldn’t the president demand loyalty oaths from the head of the FBI? And so on.
Thirty years from now, more than half of people who are Trumpists today won’t be willing to admit it. It’ll be like how few people are willing to admit they opposed the Civil Rights movement.
Sorry, but charisma in the sense of likability is not a requirement. It is a cult of personality, and in this case, the crude, loathsome personality of Trump is exactly what is followers find appealing. You can find the sentiment on this very board, with posters saying things like “Trump doesn’t respond to reporters like previous presidents. He’s a counter-puncher.” No, he’s not an counter-puncher, he’s an asshole, and that’s what they love about him. Specifically that he attacks liberalism, which again anti-liberalism is a big part of fascism. Also, I need to point out that ideological inconsistency is also a characteristics of some fascist movements (see Roger Griffon’s “The Nature of Fascism”).
As I said above, Trump might not be fascist. But if he isn’t then he’s stumbled upon a fascist movement in the USA to give him power. In almost every possible way, that’s much worse. A fascist president with no movement behind him would be irrelevant, but a fascist movement electing what they believe to be a fascist president (and let’s face it, if Trump isn’t fascist he’s certainly willing to act like one), is very dangerous.
I was under the impression that quite a few people voted for Trump to show that they disagree with Civil Rights movement.
Oh FFS. If you’re just going to list all the things politics has in common with politics, you are still using a content free insult.
Trump has no more in common with proto-Fascism than he has with late-stage Fascism. He’s got no more in common with Mussolini than he’s got with Nicolás Maduro, and the part they’ve got in common isn’t Fascism.
I think his only consistent ideology has been anti-immigration, other than that I agree with that sentence. And an anti-immigrant stance is hardly unique to fascism, thus I agree he would be better characterized as a nationalist demagogue. However, you don’t need to speak to everyone to be a populist, you just need to proffer simplistic solutions to people and claim that they are being disregarded by the elites.
He doesn’t have anything deeply ingrained. He and his attitudes and understanding are as shallow as an empty creek. He just started shitting contary crap to get attention during the Obama presidency, and it worked. He is literally like a 4 year old who figured out that saying “fuck you mama” gets half the room to laugh and the other half to scold him, and he lives on the attention.
He got trained by Bannon and Hannity the right notes to hit , and he is just going to keep hitting those notes in every way he can.
Well, as has been established, you’re entitled to your unsubstantiated opinion. So, umm, bravo?
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That was in reply to Melbourne. Quote failed on my phone.
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