Don’t vote with them
“The label now seems not just acceptable but necessary,” wrote Robert Paxton, 92, in Jan. 11, 2021 Newsweek article. Previously reluctant to use a loaded term like fascism to describe the Trump presidency, Trump’s “open encouragement of civic violence to overturn an election,” was the breaking point for the retired Columbia University historian of fascism.
Elisabeth Zerofsky writes in The New York Times (gift article):
Calling someone or something “fascist” is the supreme expression of moral revulsion, an emotional impulse that is difficult to resist. “The temptation to draw parallels between Trump and the fascist leaders of the 20th century is understandable,” the British historian Richard J. Evans wrote in 2021. “How better to express the fear, loathing, and contempt that Trump arouses in liberals than by comparing him to the ultimate political evil?” The word gets lobbed at the left too, including by Trump at Democrats. But fascism does have a specific meaning, and in the last few years the debate has turned on two questions: Is it an accurate description of Trump? And is it useful?
Most commentators fall into one of two categories: a yes to the first and second, or a no to both. Paxton is somewhat unique in staking out a position as yes and no. “I still think it’s a word that generates more heat than light,” Paxton said as we sat looking out over the Hudson River. “It’s kind of like setting off a paint bomb.”
Cokie’s Law resurfaces
But that paint is already splattered. Multiple Trump administration officials, including former John F. Kelly, a retired Marine general and Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff, and retired Gen. Mark A. Milley, former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, employed the term. Mark Esper, former Trump secretary of defense, won’t use the word fascism but tells CNN “it’s hard to say that” that Trump doesn’t fit the definition: “He certainly has those inclinations.”
The proverbial cat (Trump believes immigrants are eating) is out of the bag. Everyone knows it. Kamala Harris knows it too. Per Cokie’s Law, “it’s out there.”
In “The Divider: Trump in the White House,” Peter Baker and Susan Glasser recount Trump asking Kelly, “Why can’t you be like the German generals?”
“Do you mean Bismarck’s generals?” Kelly asked, knowing full well Trump had no idea who Bismark was. “Surely you can’t mean Hitler’s generals?”
“Yeah, yeah, Hitler’s generals,” Trump said in Kelly’s retelling. Those generals tried and failed to assassinate the fascist dictator, not that with his ignorance of history Trump knew.
Paxton tells the Times that, in a way, Trump did not set out to launch a fascist movement, but the consummate marketer nurtured it:
Whatever Trumpism is, it’s coming “from below as a mass phenomenon, and the leaders are running to keep ahead of it,” Paxton said. That was how, he noted, Italian Fascism and Nazism began, when Mussolini and Hitler capitalized on mass discontentment after World War I to gain power. Focusing on leaders, Paxton has long held, is a distraction when trying to understand fascism. “What you ought to be studying is the milieu out of which they grew,” Paxton said. For fascism to take root, there needs to be “an opening in the political system, which is the loss of traction by the traditional parties” he said. “There needs to be a real breakdown.”
And here we are. It’s the patriarchy that is breaking down. Trump and Trump’s Men don’t like it. Not one bit.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) wrote about the discontent young men feel at his substack in 2023. The mores that secured men, especially white men, atop the social ladder for millennia are crumbling. First came the civil rights, then came women’s liberation, then came Obama, triggering the alt right movement and the Trump backlash. Now the country faces choosing not only the second Black (and first Asian) president, but the first women president (for the second time). Murphy spoke about it last night with MSNBC’s Alex Wagner [timestamp 2:38]. In a post-patriarchal world, Trump promises to dial America back to a time when men were men and knew where they stood. It’s an explict part of Trump’s pitch.
Team Trump is already flooding social media with “I know you are but what am I” memes depicting Democrats as the real fascists (or communists; they can’t decide). They’re already drawing up their enemies list.
Guess what? We’re not going back. Not without a fight.
Are you ready? They are.