Is Donald Trump a Fascist?

One of the favorite narratives of left leaning media personalities is that Donald Trump is a Nazi Fascist determined to make himself America’s dictator-for-life. He does make it easy for them to paint this picture of him. Language he uses to describe illegal immigrants is not unlike Hitler’s language describing non-Aryans, especially Jews. He enjoys speaking provocatively and both he and his supporters love it when the left leaning media goes nuts over something he’s said or tweeted. But is he really a Fascist like they claim?

In an earlier essay entitled, What is the Biggest Threat to Democracy, I posited that progressivism was actually more of a threat to democracy than Trumpism. As a follow-up, I thought it might be instructive to compare American progressivism to Trumpism using Eco’s properties of Fascism. Umberto Eco was an Italian philosopher and social commentator until his death in 2016. He was influenced by his experiences with the rise of Mussolini during his childhood. He cited 14 properties of Fascism. I won’t address all 14 as some don’t really apply to this comparison, but if the principle seems to apply to one or the other or both, I’ve included it below:

The Rejection of Modernism. Verdict: Trumpism is slightly worse. Trump’s Make America Great Again slogan implies that there was time when America was great but it is no longer. For many minorities this slogan seems to reference a time before the civil rights movement when people of color had little to no influence. Trumpists might argue that position misses the point, but there is no doubt the Make America Great Again is intentionally layered and one layer appeals to white Americans threatened by modern demographic shifts.

However, Progressivists are also guilty of this. Their campaign against the impacts of European colonialism implies that Native Americans, Africans and African Americans, some Arabs and some Asians would have been better off had European colonialism never occurred. And their solutions are to undo all institutions that arose from colonialism, even if those institutions are working. In many cases they do this without defining what the replacement system might look like. Both extremes reject Modernism, but Trump’s rejection is arguably a little more sinister.

The Cult of Action for Action’s Sake. Verdict: Progressivism is worse. Eco defines this as action that is anti-intellectual and irrational. I did a google search using Trump irrational. There were just short of 7 million hits instantaneously. I read the first dozen articles attempting to find a good solid example to use in this blog. The articles were mostly from the Washington Post, NY Times, The Hill, etc. and they all used the term irrational to describe Trump, but while they were full of quotes from people calling him irrational, they didn’t really give any examples of Trump’s irrationality. I found one article in which an EPA representative from California called the Trump administration’s easing of environmental rules irrational. But many people would describe some Democratic environmental rules to be irrational. When you drill down, the irrationality claim is often simply an emotional response to his taking a different side of an issue than his critics would prefer, rather than his actually abandoning logic and reason.

Compare that to Progressivism. You don’t even have to push past the trans debate to see the irrationality. Men can have babies? Sex is not binary? White supremacy? Institutional racism? Abandonment of science and logic abounds throughout Progressivist philosophy.

Disagreement is Treason. Verdict: Progressivism is slightly worse. There is a long list of people that were once allies of Trump that are now on his enemies list: Mike Pompeio, Chris Christie, Nikki Haley, Steve Bannon, and Michael Cohen are just the tip of the iceberg. While cabinet-level turnover under Trump appears to have been higher than most administrations, cabinet turnover is not unusual and loyalty is part of the job description. Trump’s manner of publicly calling those people out and sometimes assigning them demeaning nicknames gives the appearance that he is less tolerant of dissension than prior presidents. Perhaps he is, but previous presidents made similar decisions, though usually less ceremoniously. The difference between Trump and Progressives is that Trump is just as likely to switch back. If any of those people mentioned above were to “repent”, he’d take them back and hail them as heroes.

Progressives, on the other hand, never forgive. Many of them are in the academy (colleges and universities) and when they arrange to get someone fired for failing to follow the progressive line, they are firing dissenting voices from institutions that are supposed to be a place for students to hear differing perspectives. The stories of Peter Boghossian, Charles Negy, Allan Josephson, Matthew Garret and others confirm that for Progressivists and those supporting cancel culture, disagreement is also treason. But irreparable. Even if it happened 30 years ago. Even if you’ve apologized.

Fear of Difference. Verdict: Trumpism is slightly worse. It is easy to argue that Trump’s slogans and rants carry a racist undertone. He doesn’t see immigration from the south as being a solution to our labor shortages, he sees it as an invasion that will lead to only negative outcomes. While Progressivism is often blatantly “anti-white,” at its heart is a desire for a Marxist-style government where resources are distributed equitably.

Appeal to a Frustrated Middle Class. Verdict: Trumpism is worse. Trump’s 2016 victory was fueled by a combination of a rejection of the elitism of Hillary Clinton symbolized by her “basket of deplorables” comment and Trump’s ability to connect with blue collar workers in the industrial belt who had been negatively affected by NAFTA. His base is largely made up of working class whites and white small business owners who are attracted to his commitment to lower taxes, reduce government regulation and allow more freedom.

Progressivism appeals more to people who are happy to be on the government dole, either through direct payments or through government jobs with maximum job security, or wealthy whites who feel guilty for being wealthy (and white), than to the middle class. These are people who are generally happy to exchange freedom for security.

Selective Populism. Verdict: Tie. According to Eco, Fascists identify themselves as the singular voice of “the people” while actually putting words in “the people’s” mouths. They attempt to delegitimize democratic institutions as no longer representing the will of the people. I’d say, Trump’s “rigged election” and BLM’s “blow the whole thing up” are both solid examples of selective populism.

Newspeak. Verdict: Progressivism is worse. Peter Kraft’s famous quote, If you control language, you control thought, control thought and you control action. Control action and you control the world. A key part of progressivist strategy has been controlling and redefining terms. Even the term racist, which used to be defined as the belief that people of a certain race were inferior, has been replaced with language related to political and societal systems. While Trump may be guilty of innuendo and being intentionally provocative, he’s not really associated with newspeak. Progressives, being embedded in the academy, have found it pretty simple to invent words, phrases and ideology which are largely accepted without scientific rigor. Decades of graduates who have been influenced by the social justice focus in the academy has lead to these new terms and ideologies being commonplace in the Fortune 1000 for reasons that make no economic sense apart from fear of being labeled an “ist”.

So, is Trump a Fascist? He certainly meets a few of Eco’s principles. I’m basically back to where I was when I penned What is the Biggest Threat to Democracy. No matter what Donald Trump might like to happen (like becoming America’s dictator), there is no path for him to get there due to the genius of the Founding Fathers. If elected, he’ll bitch and moan about congress and the Supreme Court for four years when they get in his way, but a “true” insurrection (not a spit in the ocean like Jan 6) is not in the cards. On the other hand, progressives are not going to win by insurrection either. But they may be winning. California, New York, Illinois, Minnesota and other states are either already one-party states or are well on their way. And those states are adopting more Marxist principles and implementing more components of a progressive agenda every election cycle.

I’m still more concerned about Progressives than I am Trump, but feel strongly that the fight to win people to the benefits of a representative democracy rooted in a capitalist economic system would be easier with a different voice than Trump. As people discovered in 2020, a vote against Trump was also a vote for the Progressive agenda. Unfortunately, it looks like they may have the same decision to make in 2024 – which brand of Fascism-lite do voters prefer.