Trump the Authoritarian, Fascist, Racist, No-Good Person Who Should Not be Elected President
The NYT goes too far but not far enough.
The front page of today’s NYT features an op-ed by political correspondents Michael C. Bender and Michael Gold headlined “Autocratic Tone Intensifies Fears Of Trump’s Plans.” The online version is bolder still, with the headline “Trump’s Dire Words Raise New Fears About His Authoritarian Bent.”
The content is nothing surprising to readers here or there, a summary of the growing nastiness of his re-election campaign. It begins,
Donald J. Trump rose to power with political campaigns that largely attacked external targets, including immigration from predominantly Muslim countries and from south of the United States-Mexico border.
But now, in his third presidential bid, some of his most vicious and debasing attacks have been leveled at domestic opponents.
During a Veterans Day speech, Mr. Trump used language that echoed authoritarian leaders who rose to power in Germany and Italy in the 1930s, degrading his political adversaries as “vermin” who needed to be “rooted out.”
“The threat from outside forces,” Mr. Trump said, “is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within.”
This turn inward has sounded new alarms among experts on autocracy who have long worried about Mr. Trump’s praise for foreign dictators and disdain for democratic ideals. They said the former president’s increasingly intensive focus on perceived internal enemies was a hallmark of dangerous totalitarian leaders.
We covered that all here ten days ago; that a rehash is front page news is, well, interesting. There’s nothing new here nor is there any connecting of the dots that brings fresh insights.
The closest we get is this:
Mr. Trump has become increasingly unrestrained with each successive campaign, a pattern that parallels the escalating stakes for him personally and politically.
In 2016, he was a long-shot candidate with little to lose, and his broadsides were often paired with schoolyard taunts that drew laughs from his audiences. Four years later, Mr. Trump’s approach became angrier as he sought to cling to power, and his term ended in a deadly riot by his supporters at the Capitol.
This election cycle, Mr. Trump faces more pressure than ever. In part, his decision to open an early White House campaign was an attempt to shield himself from multiple investigations, which have since resulted in the bulk of the 91 felony charges he now faces.
And then there’s this:
Mr. Trump’s rise to power was almost immediately accompanied by debates over whether his ascendancy, and that of other leaders around the world with similar political views, signaled a revival of fascism.
Fascism is generally understood as an authoritarian, far-right system of government in which hypernationalism is a central component.
It also often features a cult of personality around a strongman leader, the justification of violence or retribution against opponents, and the repeated denigration of the rule of law, said Peter Hayes, a historian who has studied the rise of fascism.
Past fascist leaders appealed to a sense of victimhood to justify their actions, he said. “The idea is: ‘We’re entitled because we’ve been victimized. We’ve been cheated and robbed,’” he said.
None of this would ordinarily constitute front-page news but, as I’ve recounted here for years, there have been increasing calls from the left for the journalistic establishment to abandon its longstanding ethos and devote its energies to banding the drum about how dangerous Trump is. This would seem to be an example of doing just that.
So, I was amused to see this from Jeff Jarvis at Bluesky Social:
Apparently, editorializing on the front page isn’t enough. Even the scholars quoted in the NYT piece didn’t go that far.
“There are echoes of fascist rhetoric, and they’re very precise,” said Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a professor at New York University who studies fascism. “The overall strategy is an obvious one of dehumanizing people so that the public will not have as much of an outcry at the things that you want to do.”
[…]
Some experts on authoritarianism said that while Mr. Trump’s recent language has begun to more closely resemble that used by leaders like Hitler or Benito Mussolini, he does not quite mirror fascist leaders of the past. Still, they say, he does exhibit traits similar to current strongmen like Viktor Orban of Hungary or Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey.
Mr. Trump’s relatively isolationist views run counter to the hunger for empire and expansion that characterized the rule of Hitler in Germany and Mussolini in Italy. As president, he was never able to fully wield the military for political purposes, meeting resistance when he sought to deploy troops against protesters.
Interestingly, the best analysis in the piece came from a non-expert:
“It’s too simplistic to reference him as a neofascist or autocrat or whatever — Trump is Trump, and he has no particular philosophy that I’ve seen after four years as president,” said former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, a Republican who served in President Barack Obama’s cabinet after 12 years as a senator from Nebraska.
Still, Mr. Trump’s campaign style is “damn dangerous,” Mr. Hagel said.
“He continues to push people into corners and give voice to this polarization in our country, and the real danger is if that continues to bubble up and take hold of a majority of Congress and statehouses and governorships,” Mr. Hagel went on. “There must be compromise in a democracy because there’s only one alternative — that’s an authoritarian government.”
Trump is indeed damn dangerous, both in terms of his rhetoric and his willingness to abandon all manner of democratic norms. The guardrails that restrained him last time—including Republican election officials in key swing states—are much weaker than they were before.
His opponents should be banging that drum constantly. The press, including the NYT, should absolutely be highlighting his dangerous words and plans and, indeed, are constantly doing so.
Going further and simply calling him a “fascist” in its headlines might make Democrats and other anti-Trumpers happy. But it ruins their credibility as a news outlet, turning them into an opposition organ. And it will convince nobody who would otherwise consider voting for Trump not to do so.
Your headline sums it up nicely.
As far as the experts qualifying and equivocating, aren’t those traits part of the definition of “expert.”
Not saying the thing is actually enabling the thing. That was true in 2016, when NYT participated in the “But Her Emails”, and it’s equally true now when NYT is participating in “But His Age”.
The problem might not be this particular article. The problem is the pattern. The “vermin” comment should have been immediately and roundly called what it was, including the context of that language leading to literal extermination camps.
NYT now trying to dig out of the hole needs to be entirely willing to dig out.
I actually think Chuck Hagel’s assessment is dead on. Trump has no real philosophy. Then again, I’m not convinced e.g. Franco had a particularly strong policy set beyond whatever he and his goons thought would keep them in power. I don’t think any of us would say Franco just had an “authoritarian lean”.
Not saying the thing is actually enabling the thing. That was true in 2016, when NYT participated in the “But Her Emails”, and it’s equally true now when NYT is participating in “But His Age”.
The problem might not be this particular article. The problem is the pattern. The “vermin” comment should have been immediately and roundly called what it was, including the context of that language leading to literal extermination camps.
NYT now trying to dig out of the hole needs to be entirely willing to dig out.
I actually think Chuck Hagel’s assessment is dead on. Trump has no real philosophy. Then again, I’m not convinced e.g. Franco had a particularly strong policy set beyond whatever he and his goons thought would keep them in power. I don’t think any of us would say Franco just had an “authoritarian lean”.
Mr. Joyner, calling Trump a fascist is not out of bounds, given his outlandish statements and actions. However and to your point, in my neck of the woods Trump is a maniacal carpetbagger seeking to profit off the misery of others. Those who support him reveal their own indecencies.
The Times runs stories like this all the time. Analysis of reactions to current events with multiple sources is not unique to Trump. This is just a piece they go with. There’s just a long-standing taboo amongst white conservatives not to acknowledge the existence of the f-word or the a-word in conservative politics. That’s it. That’s the controversy. Violating the taboo rather than media ethics.
I think the problem is that fascist is an overused word and it doesnt have a precise meaning so it has become one of those words people use as a negative word for people they dont like. Since it has been overused and often when clearly not true, remember that Obama was called a fascist, it means that even if someone really is a fascist people are more likely to shrug it off than believe it.
Besides, as others have pointed out it doesnt appear that Trump really has a philosophy. He is a narcissistic, grifter who seeks power who has found that behaving as the id of conservatives, saying out loud what they really believe, he can achieve and hold power. I am sure that he has seen the people on Fox who praise Urban and Putin so he approves of them and is more than willing to follow their examples but I dont think that is based upon any core political beliefs.
Steve
@ptfe: Correct. NYT is doing a PR driven exercise to immunize themselves against being called soft on fascism after the “vermin” episode. And yes, “Trump’s philosophy” is an oxymoron. Which is entirely consistent with Hitler and Mussolini. Fascism is so hard to nail down precisely because its proponents never defined it. Sort of like “conservatism”. No one seems to know just what that means either.
I would add that because it’s so ill defined, fascism is even more of an abstraction than “conservative” or “socialist”. It’s politically ineffective to call Trump a fascist. To the average, uninformed and uninterested, voter, it’s just Ds call Trump a fascist, Trump calls Ds communists, just calling each other names. Mr. and Mrs. Sixpack don’t sit around the dinner tale discussing threats to democracy. If NYT wants to help Ds (there’s no evidence they do), and if Ds want to help themselves, they won’t focus on abstractions like “fascism” and “democracy”, they’ll focus on the demonstrable fact that Trump, and the rest of the GOPs, are nuts.
Cases Sunstein yesterday had a long piece in NYT on why he’s a liberal. I spent a guest link on it, although it’s not really very good. Certainly not succinct. But he had one cogent point.
Remember FOX’s The 1/2 Hour News Hour? No one else does either. Don’t scream that GOPs are fascists. They are, but it’s more effective to point and laugh at them.
“It’s too simplistic to reference him as a neofascist or autocrat or whatever — Trump is Trump, and he has no particular philosophy that I’ve seen after four years as president,” said former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, a Republican who served in President Barack Obama’s cabinet after 12 years as a senator from Nebraska.
And this is just dumb. Trump’s philosophy is very common–it’s Social Darwinism. But the twist is that in America, to believe that the best come out on top means that the current elites are the best. And yet they can’t be the best, because that means the people who follow Trump, the Republicans and others who more or less believe in this shit, are not the best. Which is why conservatives and Republicans are marked by so much resentment and grievance. Trump picked up on this fascist instinct and went with it, because it’s in him as well. And that is why America is being run by vermin and why the dangers lie within. Because the fake elites are robbing the real elite.
Trump could kill their dogs and rape their daughters and his supporters would still vote for him.
“Didn’t you see what was so clearly coming?”
“Oh, we did. but we didn’t want to editorialize on the front page.”
James: “None of this would ordinarily constitute front-page news but, as I’ve recounted here for years, there have been increasing calls from the left for the journalistic establishment to abandon its longstanding ethos and devote its energies to banding the drum about how dangerous Trump is. This would seem to be an example of doing just that.”
James, what liberals want is:
a) Equal treatment.
b) Something beyond horserace analysis.
Now, you are correct in that liberals are asking the media to break their ethos.
If we hadn’t seen all this already, I might agree with you. But we have, and we have no excuse for not calling it what it is this time around. And “we” includes the New York Times, which failed to tell the whole truth about Hitler and thereby helped enable his rise to power.
Trump may not have a “philosophy,” but those who surround him sure as fuck do, and it we already know what it is and where it leads.
There were no concentration camps until there were.
There were no gulags until there were.
There were no Disappeared until there were.
If you subscribe to the NYT mindset, you would think that sort of thing just came out of nowhere, couldn’t possibly have been predicted, because speculating on the inevitable outcomes of words and deeds is a big ol’ no-no. News orgs learned as little as possible from Trump, and they continue to wear blinders.
Most of these anlyses fail by focusing on the person of Trump, a dataset of one, instead of the Trumpist movement which has somewhere around 70 million members across many levels of government.
DeSantis, Abbot, and thousands of state legislators, senators, federal judges, and all manner of other elected officials all the way down to local school boards have all the same authoritarian “leanings”.
The Trumpist movement is an identity movement, founded on hatred for their chosen outgroups- queer people, independent women, nonwhite and non Christian people, in other words, anyone not a part of the coalition.
Trump could keel over tomorrow and American democracy will still be hanging by a thread.
There exist words that have historically had meanings but have had the meanings stripped by bad faith misuse. Recent examples : “Woke” and “Critical Race Theory.”
Historically, the term “fascist” has been applied to regimes with a few similarities which include preferential treatment and empowerment of a Herrenvolk and the political use of violence.
Trump loves and encourages violence and the GOP is mostly big on white supremacy and Christian supremacy. So yeah – with Trump you get violence and herrenvolk which is at least fascist adjacent.
ETA: Disrespect for and abrogation of inconvenient legalities and norms is another “fascistic” behavior characteristic of Trump and his Trunpist GOP movement.
@Mikey:
All it takes to play Trump is a bit of flattery, and the authoritarians have done great at surrounding him with flatterers – and he loves being surrounded by flatterers.
Yes, but Joe Biden is 81. Checkmate, libz.
Also..
https://digbysblog.net/2023/11/20/the-swing-voters-who-turned-away/
The “connect the dots” paragraphs called out above emphasize something obvious and ignore something really important.
It should not be surprising that Trump has escalated his fascist rhetoric. As noted, he started with nothing to lose and now he has everything to lose, including his business and his freedom. He is acting as someone who has been cornered should be expected to act. He is lashing out like a feral animal.
What’s really important is that most of the Republican base wants to be led by a feral animal. As long as the beast is “fighting for them” the craziness is a feature, not a bug. And the Republican establishment is okay with being led by a trapped leopard that will eat their face because they will lose power without their base.
So, yes, bang the drum on the dangers of Trump. But, bang harder about the Republican Party’s supplication to the beast.
If Trump were to drop dead tomorrow (and I seriously wonder what his blood pressure is like), there would be someone else along very quickly to pick up what he left behind. That’s the real threat: the guy who’s not a blowhard like Trump but is taking notes and keeping track of what works, and who plans to pick up where Trump stopped. Because the real danger is not Trump but who might come after him. Trump has obviously touched something within the American psyche that is potentially very dangerous to our society’s health. Far too many Republicans – voters and politicians – showed how fast they’d cave when an authoritarian pushed them. Maybe we were kidding ourselves all along that we were exceptional, special, different (or better) than other nationalities. I worry about what comes after Trump much more than I worry about Trump.
@Not the IT Dept.: That’s exactly right. I would just add that American society has been groomed (heh) for this moment for decades. Limbaugh, Fox News, Gingrich, and so many others, whether intentionally or not, brought us to this point. In the last decade or so, social media has proven to be an even more effective tool. Now, 1/4 or so of the people have been radicalized into hating their enemy party and even more go along with it. It’s not a majority but a majority isn’t required to wreak major havoc.
Like you say, this situation isn’t going to change for the better quickly with Trump’s disappearance from the scene (and is likely to get worse), and the next guy may be more effective at using it.
My cynical take is that people want headlines to confirm their views- especially people with strong political opinions. There isn’t much other reason why people get so outraged at an Op-Ed headline or even a straight news headline.
Related is the notion that “proper” headlines and descriptive terms and adjectives will magically sway public opinion in the correct direction – which I’m skeptical of. There is also the idea that everyone else will see the truth as you do if only they would stop getting information from the “wrong” sources. Queue the complaints about Fox News, Soros, MSNBC, the Koch’s, etc.
To a certain extent, there is, IMO, some truth to that. But on the other hand, it’s as if some of the advocates who want to police headlines about Trump have learned nothing since 2015. This isn’t a new road we’re plowing. And part of the problem from an effectiveness standpoint is that liberals and Democrats have been calling Republicans “fascist” for my entire adult life and, likewise, conservatives and Republicans have been calling Democrats “socialists” and “communists” for eternity too.
So I don’t think insisting that everyone label Trump a fascist is going to be all that effective regardless of how accurate a descriptor it is. Overuse of the term and the comparison has deadened its power considerably.
And so I agree with James entirely here, including the last part:
The Democratic Party, the media, federal law enforcement, and the U.S. intelligence community conspire for years to promote and spread the venomous lie of “Russian collusion”…and Trump is the dangerous one.
His enemies turn a Congressional investigation into the January 6 capitol riot into the dictionary definition of a “show trial” where every statement, bit of “evidence,” and moment of testimony was prescreened and designed to fit a preconceived narrative…and Trump is the dangerous one.
The media and the U.S. intelligence community conspire to censor and suppress an entirely accurate news story before the 2020 election and do so for purely partisan reasons…and Trump is the dangerous one.
The person James Joyner wanted to be President has allowed the U.S./Mexico border to descend to the worst level of dysfunction and chaos seen in decades…and Trump is the dangerous one.
The Democratic Party and the media conspire to lie to the public to get an actually brain-damaged person elected to the U.S. Senate…and Trump is the dangerous one.
The frontrunner for the GOP Presidential nomination is currently facing multiple criminal prosecutions conducted by his political opponents…and Trump is the dangerous one.
And liberal-dominated college campuses reveal themselves to be the biggest supporters of Hamas in the United States…and Trump is the dangerous one.
Future sociologists and psychologists are going to have a great time analyzing how tribalism went berzerk among the educated and “sophisticated” people who were supposed to be the least susceptible to such things.
I have a conservative friend and former co-worker who was unhappy in 2016 about being called a “deplorable”. He read Breitbart News at the time, so I guess he took it personal.
I wonder what he thinks now about me being called “vermin” which should be “exterminated”? (Hmm, Trump as Dalek…kind of works.)
Forget “facist”. Focus on “vermin” and “exterminate”. He said those things. He owns them.
@TheRyGuy: “and Trump is the dangerous one.”
Glad you agree. The rest of your post is just silliness but you got this right.
Trump is the dangerous one.
You got that part right…
@charontwo:
Yep. Flatter Trump and you can manipulate him into doing whatever you like. He’s your puppet. Remember back in 2015 when Putin said he was smart? Trump was Putin’s forever after.
@TheRyGuy:
Trump colluded with Russia. He publicly called for Russia to intefere in our election, his campaign met with Russian agents in Trump Tower to exchange election meddling for reducing sanctions, and his Russian asset campaign chair Manafort has publicly admitted giving stolen data to Russians directly, to help Russian coordinate their propaganda cyberattacks.
Reality: treasonous thug and pervert Trump — who tweeted a White Power video on 28 June 2020 and repeatedly made gross comments about wanting to bang his own daughter — incited the deadly Jan 6 terror attack on Congress because he’s a narcisstic sore loser.
Truth: the Hunter Biden non-story was not “entirely suppressed.” A New York Post link about the story was blocked on Twitter for a few days. Trump lost by millions of votes not because of anything to do with that, but because he’s a failure who exhausted the nation with his childish bullying, bankrupted the nation with tax cuts for billionaires and record deficits, and whose incompetent leadership fomented civil unrest, mass COVID death, and record job loss.
Republicans had total control under Trump, and did nothing serious to fix immigration. Because Republicans do not care about the border as a cudgel to spew racist gate at powerless migrants, manipulated their base of dumb, deplorable bigots.
The Republican Party is led by old, unhealthy, morbidly obese patholgical liar Dementia Donald — who told Americans to inject disinfectant to cure COVID, keeps saying he ran against Obama, and doesn’t know he lost the 2020 election.
Reality: the frontrunner of the GOP — a liable rapist who mocked a disabled reporter and smeared fallen soldiers — was indicted by citizen grand juries for stealing and refusing to return sensitive documents (including nuclear secrets), conspiring to overturn the 2020 election despite his own judges and audits rejecting his sore loser bullshit, illegally paying off the women he cheated on his wife with, and illegally pressuring Republican election officials. The Trump crime family should also be invested for their unexplained Chinese income and $2 billion Saudi blood money bribe.
Conservative heros Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson — who have bigger platforms than any college student — are using their influence to spread hate about Jews in the wake of Hamas’s Oct 7 attack. An attack precipitated by the failed policies of conservative hero Benjamin Netanyahu, who in 2019 called for funding and boosting Hamas.
Those future sociologists and psychologists are today’s millennials and Zoomers, who rightly despise fascist, anti-American, lying pig Trump and his book banning, climate change denying, forced birthing cult. We won’t do much analyzing, because already know Trump and his ilk are unpatriotic, unintelligent, amoral twats without decency, integrity, or honor.
The words Authoritarian and Fascist mean things to people that are educated but mean nothing to a drywaller or HVAC tech. This is a problem with the left and centrists of either bent–its messengers lack the social maneuverability to speak to other tribes.
You know what a roofer understands? Dictators and Kings. Call Trump those and point out that he eventually turns on EVERYONE. They also understand Stiffs, there is a mile long list of people Trump stiffed. Parade em out, drip drip drip.
I am glad the village idiot decided to speak up and prove what the rest of us have been thinking all along.
@Jim Brown 32:
Good idea, but I think the MAGAs have already dismissed these stories as “fake news.”
@TheRyGuy: And? So Trump is the only person that gets to fight? You want your guy to swing on other people….well you better be prepared to watch him get knocked out.
Your white savior is a weak man’s picture of a strong man.
Now buckle up, grab a bud light, and watch your orange God go down in flames—And keep coming around with the orange toners on your fingers and mouth. Its entertaining.
@CSK: Yes, but it’s the Maga adjacent the messaging is for. Not very many Republican voters are hardcore Maga. They live in a media uni-culture where only one point of view dominate. They also calculate that even if the worse was true…it will be bad for someone else not them. Whereas if Democrats were elected, everyone would be worse off .
Rural people will drink from the most convenient well in town. There needs to be another voice confusing the lies they feed on. Unfortunately, lefty billionaires don’t seem to be interested in competing in this space as much as the Righty Billionaires.
@gVOR10:
@Jim Brown 32:
One, educated voters are a crucial voting bloc whose priorities Democrats should not neglect. Having an education doesn’t make someone less important.
Two, I’m not sure highlighting Trump’s fascist threat to democracy doesn’t work. That’s what the pundit class said before the 2022 election when Biden was highlighting the threat to democracy, and voters proved the talking heads very wrong.
Working-class Americans know what words mean. They’re not infants. Many may not care that Trump is a budding fascist, others may support Trump’s fascism. But to pretend that “fascist” is too big a word for Americans to understand is pretty patronizing.
Benito is appealing the ruling in Colorado that did NOT disqualify him fro running to an office that’s somehow not an office.
Why? Because the ruling also says he engaged in insurrection against the United States. And I suppose he thinks that makes him look bad (astonishing he got one right).
It would be the height of irony if the appeal winds up getting him disqualified from one or more state ballots. I urge offerings and prayers to Nemesis, Ate, and the Furies.
@DK:
No, they don’t. I don’t recall your background, but if you surveyed the blue collar or formerly blue collar people here in comments, I think you’d find we mostly agree with @Jim Brown 32: .
That’s not to suggest blue collar Americans are stupid or infants, they are just living different lives, having different experiences than you.
@TheRyGuy: Every word you wrote is bullshit, including “and” and “the.”
@Jim Brown 32:
Reminded my of my neighbor, who is honestly aware he and his wife are not really up on policy, but the one thing they know for sure is that the Democrats want to destroy America. Stove-piped intel curtesy of FOX et al.
@Michael Reynolds: All due respect, some of y’all have not been working class in decades and are very much out of touch, in my opinion. For example, some folks here were strangely insisting “LatinX” was going to be a big issue in the 2020 elections. It wasn’t.
I’ve no special reason to believe you have the pulse of American voters, blue collar or otherwise. So I’ll continue to trust my own instincts, where appropriate. Some of the extremely-online groupthink agreed upon here is unwise, in my view. I don’t need an OTB survey of an unrepresentative, self-selected sample to tell me what to think, just like no one here need replace their well-considered beliefs with mine.
@Jim Brown 32:
You know good and well that Bud Light no longer exists in that person’s fridge.
Not exactly. Via Eschaton today, here’s a Columbia Journalism Review article detailing what we’re really bitching about. After the 2016 election:
But they learned, right? They added WAPO to their study after the 2022 midterms:
Few voters vote on policy. Maybe if the MSM ever talked about policy, more would, which would favor Ds. The press haven’t learned a damn thing from 2016. We don’t want them to be pro Dem, we want them to stop being so pro GOP.
A whole.
@TheRyGuy:
I’m sorry, but speaking as an outsider Trump’s recent statements are openly fascistic:
You could have lifted this from a speech by Mussolini or Hitler (minus the “fascists” obvs.) almost verbatim.
This is DANGEROUS.
Under what ludicrous definition of “show trial” is that?
I happen to to have spent some time looking into ACTUAL show trials in Nazi Germany, the USSR, and the Soviet satellites post-1945.
The hearings were not even remotely similar.
I’m likely to regret this but: what are you actually on about here?
I’m sorry, but you are being both silly, and malign, and thinking you are being amusingly “clever”.
This is a pattern that wrecked numerous polities from 1900 to 1941.
Stop it.
This is, incidentally, not a condemnation of “conservatism”: most British Conservatives, some French (see de Gaulle), and indeed Americans, and others, proved immune to this nonsense in the 1930’s and 40’s.
Damning yourself for a cause you believe in is a mistake
Running down the road to perdition merely for the lulz of “pwning the libz” is just pathetic.
@DK:
You think blue collar workers have gotten smarter since the 80’s when I was a blue collar worker? I rather doubt that.
I’m still a blue collar guy, I’m just a blue collar guy with money. Still trailer trash with a 16 year-old mother and disappeared birth father. Still ex-Army brat, still have the fucked up back from humping trays, and the scars on my chest and hand from the time I dropped one. Still just have a GED and one semester of college. Learned to swim in a panhandle bayou where a human turd was a fairly common sight. I don’t have an actual criminal record, but I should, and not for white collar crime, my crimes involved a saw and a crowbar. Who do I talk to when I get dragged to some fancy event? The waiters. My people, way more than other authors.
You don’t magically become a different person when you become successful. And the things that are most formative tend to come early in life. As of 1989 I was cleaning homes and offices on Cape Cod. I’ve had money for a bit more than a third of my life, the earlier two thirds did not evaporate upon arrival of my first American Express card.
Also, don’t you think it’s odd to insist working people know what ‘fascist’ means when all of us clever people here admit that the word has no firm definition? And as for LatinX? It disappeared even faster than I predicted it would, so yeah, no one gave a fuck.
@DK: Understanding does not equal agreement nor resonance with a message.
I understand Aerosmith, but I resonate with Franky Beverly and Maze. To connect with people, you must speak their language in the proper dialect. Which, for the Democratic Party, would require them to be multilingual and not simply bi or trilingual.
I’m not sure how much it would resonate with the current electorate, but I can’t help but notice that anyone who supports Trump ipso facto believes that we were on the wrong side in World War 2. That seems like something worth pointing out.
@Michael Reynolds:
All of us? Clever?
Hahahahaha.
You can believe whatever you want. I disagree, and I stick by what I said.
Revisionist history is fun.
@Jim Brown 32:
The Democratic Party consistently wins the votes of the poorest, least advantaged, least privileged, and most economically-distressed households and demographics over Republicans.
Despite the extremely-online fake narrative that insists otherwise by pretending only white people are working class and erasing the rest of us from existence.
Note: the spread is not particularly close either, as both Hillary’s and Biden’s advantage with households making under $50k yearly was at double-digit territory. So.
I wish all the hipster poseurs here would just shut the fuck up about their supposed blue collar street cred. I doubt that there’s a single one of us here who isn’t firmly ensconced in, at the very least, the heart of the middle class*–including the one who never held a full-time job after he was 35 and worked industrial day labor at least part of every year until he was 55.
*Except for, maybe, Ozark.
@Andy:
I couldn’t disagree with both of you more. Using the F-word to describe actual fascists is necessary for several reasons:
You’re not wrong, and you’re not editorializing. Fascism isn’t some slippery concept, like wavicles or the Holy Trinity. There are clear historical signposts to what fascism is, and even how it evolves over time.
You’re not turning any more into an opposition organ than you already are. If you’re just reporting the news, calling that orang-and-black-striped animal over there a tiger doesn’t make you an opposition organ. Nor will saying that the tiger is dangerous convert you into partisan hacks.
You’re not going to make the fascists, or their enablers, any more opposed to you than they already are. “Don’t poke the sleeping tiger” is absurd advice when the tiger is already awake and tearing at your throat. So on that we agree. However, there are those who may awake from their fever dream eventually, if not today, then someday (one hopes before a national political, moral, and economic collapse). Helping them see the reasons for their nascent misgivings is not a completely useless enterprise.
We went to war to fight fascists, because they’re evil. Historical memories fade, so it’s good to draw a bright line from now until then, for those who need reminding or educating for the first time. Engaging in some ridiculous indirect fill-in-the-blanks game is not only unnecessary, but dangerous. Fascism has been a disaster for every country where it took root, and it was a calamity for the countries they invaded, and the ones who had to fight to end these vile regimes.
@Michael Reynolds:
I have no opinion about what working people know or think, but the idea that “fascism” is some fuzzy gray indefinable is just dumb. It’s vastly more concrete than (say) “conservative” or “liberal”, both words that our hosts have no qualms about using repeatedly. It’s much easier to establish that Trump is a fascist than that (say) Joe Biden is a liberal. There’s an actual checklist for fascism; this isn’t rocket science.
@DK: Thank you for the excellent refutation of TheRyGuy. It’s remarkable how much trolls can excrete. Be aware, however, that if you point to that large pile of brown stuff and use a direct term to describe it, such as manure, someone will accuse you of being part of the Never Guano partisan lobby.
@Kingdaddy:
I don’t think you refuted what James wrote that you bolded, namely the effect of using the word on the media’s credibility and its ability to convince anyone who isn’t already in the anti-Trump camp.
In my own case, I could not be more in the anti-Trump camp (opposed Trump from the beginning, supported both impeachments, etc.), but the strident arguments about the necessity of labeling Trump with the fascist label just get me to roll my eyes. To me it just doesn’t make sense to waste effort dying on that hill – the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.
I think it’s much better not to rely on overused labels and actually spend that time and effort to instead explain what Trump and his allies are proposing to do. And not here, where almost everyone is in the anti-Trump camp, but among the people who aren’t and are convincable.
Describing Trump’s goals in his own words and trusting people enough to draw their own conclusions is, IMO, a much more effective effort than yet another internecine conflict among the left about the proper words to use and assuming that “fascist” is some kind of magical mantra that can change minds.
That said, I won’t complain about anyone who wants to use the label. I just don’t think it is that important.
@DK: And yet, Republicans still have significant power in this country despite being a largely fundraising grift with no governing philosophy nor incentives to pursue on.
Of course, you will have a handy excuse to deflect on why it’s someone else’s fault (but the Democratic Party Inc) of why this is.. instead of deliberate leadership choices. The American political landscape requires a calculation of (not just) how many…but where voter blocks live. So Democrats winning *more poor voters is immaterial after a certain threshold. They don’t turn out rural voters– who are more valuable at his point than turning out another metropolitan person.
To quote Herm Edwards, You play to WIN the game. The winners (moral or immoral) get to impose policy preferences. period
I don’t give a flying flip if rural voters are mostly white, they are the difference in Medicare expansion for millions of Black folks in Red States…which btw have the largest percentage of the black population.
The current strategy allows Republicans a messaging safe haven and domination of State legislatures to perpetuate more fuckery on people who don’t understand how they are being manipulated. I see that as a problem for people that claim they want to uplift lower class Americans.
Most of those people are outside cities.
@Andy:
Except that the labels matter, because they say more than just, This is who these people are. It also says, This is where we are going if they are not stopped. After the 2020 election, there was the typical wishful thinking about how the MAGA Republicans must have been chastened, their idol had been toppled, etc. etc. Same again in the 2022 elections. Problem is, the fascists are never chastened, the way you would expect other species of right wing political actors. With electoral and other setbacks, their outrage, their determination, their hatred increases. There are no tactical adjustments to win future elections. There is only the destructive rage to annihilate anyone who dares stand in their way. If that were not true, then Hitler would have arrived at an ignominious terminus in 1923.
The etiology of fascism is highly predictable. If you don’t call it fascism, to remind people of a trajectory that others have already traveled, they will make the same catastrophic mistakes, again, assuming that fascists can be chastened, moderated, controlled, harnessed, deflected, compromised, whatever. “What they are proposing to do” seems less like speculative fiction, more like historical antecedent, if you denote something by its proper name. No, it’s not a magical mantra. It’s a diagnosis of a terminal disease, if not addressed rapidly and seriously.
@DrDaveT:
Nevertheless, I’ve seen Fascism used as the polar opposite of Marxism. It’s not that clear in the minds of many people. Including, I suppose, the people who put the fasces in the talons of the American eagle. Or perhaps it was…
At any rate Trump will counter the tactic in the Lee Atwater way, he will call his enemies fascists loudly and often to muddy those waters…and for his followers it will work splendidly.
@Scott F.: I really enjoy the high quality of discussions on Outsidethebeltway. These can promote a better understanding of complex issues involving Trump and the current Republican party. If we express our increased understanding outside of social media, it can make a difference. We can write letters to the editor, donate, volunteer etc. The risks of Trumpism are too great to not get actively involved.
@Michael Reynolds: “I’m still a blue collar guy, I’m just a blue collar guy with money. ”
Yeah, just like Bill O’Reilly.
I’ve got nothing but respect for your success and the talent that brought it. I hope you enjoy every minute of the high-end lifestyle it has earned you.
But you’re not “still a blue collar guy.” You’re a rich guy. You live like a rich guy. You hang out with rich guys. Your concerns are the concerns of rich guys.
I will never understand why a certain type of fabulously successful individual feels compelled to pretend — to himself as well as to others, I suspect — that they’re still just Jenny From The Block. As if decades of fabulous success have changed nothing about them, and that they are still totally in sync with Da Working Guy.
It’s not true about O’Reilly. It’s not true about Smerconish. And I strongly doubt it’s true about anyone who’s posting here…
@wr: You realize, I hope, that every person carries around all of their life with them and it influences them all the time, every day. Right?
Sometimes I feel my own roots while chatting with y’all on this blog – an activity which I enjoy, and which so many of the people I grew up with would not enjoy nor be able to keep up with.
And yet, I can tell I have known so many people, and had so many experiences that many of you find utterly foreign. It’s not a badge or something. It’s not some sort of argument-winner, no more than “I’ve been to college and received advanced degrees” is. But it does exist.
My opinion is that words like “fascist” more signal affinity than they persuade. Whereas “vermin” and “exterminate” are more, uh, suitable for evangelism. And yes, by all means, we should be going at Trump, bare-knuckled. Just use punches that land and will do damage.
@Kingdaddy:
Well, then you and I have a fundamental disagreement. If you really think Trump is just like Hitler or Mussolini, then I suppose it’s appropriate to try to make that label stick. But I think you have a tough hill to climb to convince people he’s the actual fascist you think he is.
@wr:
There is a fundamental difference between someone who was poor and became rich vs someone born with a silver spoon. I think “lived experience” is the popular term for this.
@Andy:
For someone who purports to object to all-or-nothing black-or-white framings, you sure do a lot of it.
Hint: I can accurately and informatively describe someone as “an architect” without thereby claiming that they are “just like Frank Lloyd Wright”.
@TheRyGuy:
‘venomous lie’?
Luckily for you, the facts say otherwise.
Many high level people who were involved in the Trump 2016 campaign (like Paul Manafort just to name one) met with Russian officials throughout campaign season. Donald Trump Jr. met with a known Russian operative at the Trump Tower in Manhattan. Trump himself publically asked Russians to feel free to share information they hd regarding Hilary’s emails.
@Andy: He is the head of a fascist movement. Is he “just like Hitler or Mussolini”? Not exactly, but he doesn’t have to be to qualify as a fascist leader.