With the hope of alarming these voters, commentators and politicians have accused Trump of sounding like a fascist. But despite the parallels between Trump’s proposals for registering Muslim citizens and his racist statements about Mexicans with the ideas of Nazism, most of his supporters would not think Trump is a fascist.
For them, he represents anti-politics: their idea is that Trump transcends politics as usual. They support his statements not only for their contents but also because of their populist style. Trump’s followers believe in his self-presentation as a lonely hero of the people that is fighting the political elite.
.. The true fascist leader did not have to explain his policies: he was a man of action who could do no wrong. He was followed because he was believed to represent what an entire people wanted. Most voters often supported fascists despite their most extreme views because they believed in their talk of order, economic improvement and national uniformity.
.. Surely, Trump voters would not identify with fascism but they share with the early supporters of fascism a deep suspicious of the other, of people of different ethnic and religious backgrounds. Trump’s followers want a country that looks, believes, talks, eats and drinks the same. They want to go back to a country without diversity that never existed except in the reactionary images of the past.
While his presentation may be unusual for a U.S. presidential candidate, his policies are not. Trump is a Republican, not a fascist.
“A sense of victimhood is absolutely essential” to the rise of fascism, Paxton said, “and I think that’s very strong in America today.”
.. While his presentation may be unusual for a U.S. presidential candidate, his policies are not. Trump is a Republican, not a fascist.
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:
- A cult of “action for action’s sake,” where “thinking is a form of emasculation”;
- an intolerance of “analytical criticism,” where disagreement is condemned;
- a profound “fear of difference,” where leaders appeal against “intruders”;
- 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”;
- 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”;
- a “popular elitism” where “every citizen belongs to the best people of the world” and underscored by contempt for the weak;
- 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.
Ross Douthat: Is Donald Trump a Fascist?
last week a few Republican insiders floated an accusation that you usually hear liberals sling against the right: That the real estate magnate turned populist is actually a fascist.
The hook for this charge was Trump’s illiberal musings about Muslims and databases and his lies — or, to be charitable, false memories — about cheering throngs of Muslim-Americans after Sept. 11.
.. But the charge can be easily fleshed out with more examples. Writing for Slate last week, Jamelle Bouie argued that Trumpism, however ideologically inchoate, manifests at least seven of the hallmarks of fascism identified by the Italian polymath Umberto Eco. They include: a cult of action, a celebration of aggressive masculinity, an intolerance of criticism, a fear of difference and outsiders, a pitch to the frustrations of the lower middle class, an intense nationalism and resentment at national humiliation, and a “popular elitism” that promises every citizen that they’re part of “the best people of the world.”