By Brigitte L. Nacos
Earlier this month, New York Times columnist Charles Blow wrote that “a nativist, sexist, arguably fascist and racist demagogue who twists the truth is the front-runner in the race to become the Republican Party’s presidential nominee, over the protestations of the party’s establishment, who rightly view his ascendance as an existential threat to an already tattered brand.”
If (when) Trump becomes the GOP’s presidential nominee or the next U. S. president, this threat does not only further the fragmentation of one of America’s major parties but threaten the American political system as we know it.
So, what is Trump—a populist, a demagogue, a fascist, or all of these?
Although Trump defies neat partisan and ideological categories, his populism and demagoguery are reminiscent of the ultra-right movements of the 1950s and 1960s, of which Richard Hofstadter wrote that for the Cold Warriors of that time their country had been “largely taken away from them and their kind.”
Similar sentiments were expressed and perpetuated by the Tea Party that emerged in early 2009, its sympathizers, and politicians close to the movement. Then the threat was personified by the “illegitimate” President Obama and his fellow liberals. But the Tea Party’s insistence of being a grassroots movement without a central leadership figure at its helm was contrary to typical populist movements that organize around charismatic leaders and personality cults. Now Trump sells himself as the best and the brightest and the strongest and the toughest leader of his “Make America Great Again” movement, the nation, and the world. Trump, the savior.
He is a textbook populist in his constant distinction between “we, the people” and “they, the elite or establishment;” and he is a demagogue in the glorification of “us” and the demonization of “them” with the “communist” Bernie Sanders his latest rhetorical punch ball. As sociologist Patricia Roberts-Miller explains, “Demagogues polarize a complicated (and often frightening) situation by presenting only two options: their policy, and some obviously stupid, impractical, or shameful one. They almost always insist that ‘those who are not with us are against us’ so that the polarized policy situation also becomes a polarized identity situation.
Populist and demagogic appeals are at the core of Trump’s simple, substance-poor messages. But what seems repetitive and simplistic is the secret of Trump’s populist appeal. As Joseph Goebbels, the propaganda genius of Hitler’s Third Reich, recognized and preached,
“In the long run, propaganda will reach the broad masses of the people only if at every stage it is uniform. Nothing confuses the people more than lack of clarity or aimlessness. The goal is not to present the common man with as many varied and contradictory theories as possible. The essence of propaganda is not in variety, but rather the forcefulness and persistence with which one selects ideas from the larger pool and hammers them into the masses using the most varied methods.”
This leaves the question whether Trump is a fascist as well. Explaining in 1944 that a satisfactory definition of fascism remained elusive, George Orwell wrote that “almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist’. That is about as near to a definition as this much-abused word has come.”
Watching Trump’s daily—oftentimes several times daily--cable-televised “Breaking News” performances, the term “bully” is certainly appropriate with respect to his reaction to protesters at his rallies. This is from Ezra Klein’s VOX article on this subject:
“Violence is scary. But violence as ideology is terrifying. And that's where Trump's campaign has gone. ‘Knock the hell out of them. I promise you I will pay for the legal fees. I promise.’ On February 1, Trump made a promise to an angry crowd. You protect me, he said, and I'll protect you. ‘If you see someone getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously. Knock the hell out of them. I promise you I will pay for the legal fees. I promise.‘"
A bully, for sure, but a fascist?
While recognizing different types of fascisms and the fuzziness in any definition of fascism Umberto Ecco presented 14 characteristics of “Ur-Fascism, or Eternal Fascism.” According to Ecco,”these features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it.”
Well, a few of these features can be found in Trumpism as well as in the contemporary White Supremacy/Neo-Nazi movement , namely,
"Ur-Fascism grows up and seeks for consensus by exploiting and exacerbating the natural fear of difference. The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.
Ur-Fascism derives from individual or social frustration. That is why one of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups…
To people who feel deprived of a clear social identity, Ur-Fascism says that their only privilege is the most common one, to be born in the same country. This is the origin of nationalism. Besides, the only ones who can provide an identity to the nation are its enemies. Thus at the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology there is the obsession with a plot, possibly an international one. The followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia."
If all of this does not convince enough Americans that the stakes are high in this primary season, what will?
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