Donald Trump Is a Fascist

One of the most-read takes on fascism comes from Italian philosopher and novelist Umberto Eco in an essay for the New York Review of Books titled “Ur-Fascism.” Eco emphasizes the extent to which fascism is ad hoc and opportunistic. It’s “philosophically out of joint,” he writes, with features that “cannot be organized into a system” since “many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanacticism.”

.. They are:
  1. A cult of “action for action’s sake,” where “thinking is a form of emasculation”;
  2. an intolerance of “analytical criticism,” where disagreement is condemned;
  3. a profound “fear of difference,” where leaders appeal against “intruders”;
  4. appeals to individual and social frustration and specifically a “frustrated middle class” suffering from “feelings of political humiliation and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups”;
  5. a nationalist identity set against internal and external enemies (an “obsession with a plot”); a feeling of humiliation by the “ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies”;
  6. a “popular elitism” where “every citizen belongs to the best people of the world” and underscored by contempt for the weak;
  7. and a celebration of aggressive (and often violent) masculinity.

.. Now, let’s look at Trump. His campaign revolves around one theme: That the United States is weak, that it loses, and that it needs leadership to become “great again.” “We don’t have victories anymore ..

..  The rhetoric of fascism is here. And increasingly, the policies are too. The only thing left is the violence.