Is Donald Trump a Fascist? General Mark Milley, the former chairman of Trump's Joint Chiefs of Staff, thinks so. Trump is "fascist to the core", he warns. John Kelly, Trump's former chief of staff, agrees. Vice President Kamala Harris, his opponent in this year's presidential election, shares the same opinion. But seasoned political commentators aren't so sure. In The Guardian, Sidney Blumenthal calls Trump a "Hitlerist" and his rallies "Nazi," but refrains from calling him a fascist. The New Republic's Michael Tomasky understands the reservations, but he's tired of spending time debating the difference between "fascist" and simply "fascist".
"It's damn close," Tomasci wrote. I understand that logic. That's why Harris used the term "fascist" to describe Trump — to send a "911 call to the American people." But there is one problem. I've spent the last six years researching right-wing, authoritarian political communication in America. I can say with confidence how such direct tags can go wrong. They can very easily be made to look like liberal hysteria playing right into the hands of the far right. This is written by Jeff Boucher, a professor at Deacon University. for The Conversation online edition.
Here are two reasons why it is extremely important to call Trump what he is.
1. Calling Trump a fascist and then immediately adding "or close enough" plays directly into the hands of the far right. "Do you see?" they may say. "Every time someone steps outside the liberal consensus, they are labeled a fascist. This is how political correctness silences dissent."
2. Trump's kind of authoritarianism thrives on the ambiguity of what kind of right-wing populist figure he is. Its success depends on the fact that "fascist" is the only name we currently have for authoritarian politics. I don't think Trump is a fascist. Rather, it is part of a "new authoritarianism" that undermines democracy from within and consolidates power through administrative rather than paramilitary means.
Why is the label "fascism" is worthless
This brand of new authoritarianism is hiding in plain sight because it doesn't yet have a name. It looks like something else - for example, a right-wing populism that is anti-liberal but not yet anti-democratic. And suddenly he reveals himself as anti-democratic extremism, as Trump did by refusing to accept the outcome of the 2020 election and encouraging storming of the Capitol. The moment dramatically revealed Trump as a new authoritarian. Further debate about whether Trump is like Adolf Hitler risks being pointless. But the problem is that fascism is the only name we have now for anti-democratic extremism. All fascists are autocrats. But not all autocrats are fascists. It is extremely important to understand that there are other types of authoritarianism and how to distinguish between them.
This is important not only to prevent Trump from trying to undermine American democracy. It is also vital to stop the Trump impersonators who will now emerge in other democracies. If there is still no other name for who they are than "fascists", then they too will thrive on ambiguity.
What is the "new authoritarianism"?
I suggest we focus on what Trump really is - an anti-democratic, "new autocrat" - and to understand what this means and how he is gaining wider support using right-wing populism. New autocrats do not necessarily strike at a country's institutions, for example by abolishing elections. Rather, they empty democracy from within, so that it becomes a facade superimposed on a one-party state. Today we have many examples of this type of ruler: Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey, Viktor Orbán in Hungary, Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus, Qais Sayed in Tunisia and, of course, the poster figure of the new autocrats, Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Autocrats like Putin must rule through the state, not the people, because, as social psychologist Bob Altemeyer explains, they ultimately represent a small minority of the population. Military dictatorships rule through the armed forces. Fascist regimes in Europe in the 20th century were ultimately police states. They relied on turning paramilitary death squads into secret police (like the Gestapo) and state security (SS in Nazi Germany).
However, the new autocrats rule by transforming public offices into their own personal political machines. That's why Trump is obsessed with the "deep state," by which he means the way democratic institutions have built-in legal safeguards protected by government officials who can potentially thwart executive orders. The new authoritarian strategy is to appoint a layer of political loyalists to key positions in their administrations who can bypass institutional checks. But this is not an easy question. If elected, Trump has vowed to "crush the deep state," for example by purging thousands of non-political civil servants. As part of this, he promised to set up a "truth and reconciliation commission" aimed at punishing those he felt had opposed him in the past. Trump has followed this new authoritarian game for almost his entire political career. These are the three steps he takes to lay the foundations of authoritarian rule:
1) Undermining the integrity of elections
The first key to the new authoritarianism: undermining democracy by undermining electoral integrity. What is the litmus here? Autocrats do not accept election results when the opposition has won. As Trump very directly put it, "I am a very proud election denier.". Trump's first move in this regard was to take control of the Republican Party. He used electoral negation to do this while marginalizing any moderates who opposed him. Trump's GOP is now a minority party, geared toward white discontent, anti-immigrant resentment, and the anti-democratic idea that a country should be run like a company. Its only hope of winning power as a minority party is by trying to suppress the vote of its opponents. To do this, Trump-supporting Republican states have passed a number of laws since 2020 to make voting more difficult. These states also aggressively removed people from the voter rolls. Texas alone has removed one million voters from its rolls since 2021, only 6,500 of whom were classified as noncitizens. If Trump wins, he will likely make it even more difficult for people to vote. Civil rights groups fear he could introduce a citizenship question on the ballot, use the Justice Department to carry out a massive purge of voter rolls and launch criminal investigations of election officials. As a backup measure, Trump is likely to resurrect the "Election Integrity Commission," he created in 2017 to justify his claims of alleged voter fraud in the 2016 election and bolster his narrative of election denial .
2) Weakening of legislative and judicial power
The second key to the new authoritarianism: circumventing the checks and balances function of the legislature. The goal here is to rule through executive power or to rule through an ordered legislative majority. New autocrats often rule by decree, including the use of emergency powers. For example, Trump has envisioned a scenario in which the Republican Congress could pass emergency powers to authorize the president to revoke the power of state governors to fire their attorneys general and use the National Guard for law enforcement. Such developments will depend on a number of factors, including the complicity of the judiciary. That is why the new autocrats are also trying to fill the judiciary with loyalists. In his first term, Trump not only appointed three Supreme Court justices, but also appointed judges to federal appeals courts and district courts. 3) Attack your enemies
This leads to the third pillar of the new authoritarianism: beheading political opposition and suppressing dissent. Trump's threats to investigate and prosecute his enemies, including leading figures in the Democratic Party, should be taken very seriously. His calls to fight the "enemy within" were aimed at what he considered to be "radical leftist lunatics". Journalists and news media are also likely to be attacked. Trump's statement that the broadcast licenses of national networks should be revoked, for example, should be read in the context of his promises to disband federal regulatory agencies if elected. This matters because the next step for the new autocrats to consolidate their power is by suppressing dissent. Trump has proposed using the military in a civilian context to pursue criminals and prevent illegal immigration. He even reportedly wondered why the military couldn't "just shoot" the protesters. It is important to understand how this differs from fascism because it is central to Trump's ability to retain electoral support. Classic fascism under dictators like Hitler and Italy's Benito Mussolini was based on street fighting, paramilitary movements that used violence to intimidate and crush opposition. Equivalents of this today are right-wing militias such as the "Proud Boys" and "Oath Keepers". Trump has one foot on the edge of that camp. But alt-right figures like Bannon understand that swastika flags and paramilitary uniforms are a political liability. They prefer a new authoritarianism that is able to push a right-wing extremist agenda by reducing democracy to sham elections rather than openly establishing a totalitarian regime. As such, Trump can avoid accusations of being a "fascist" by telling the "Proud Boys" to "stay away", while at the same time raising a smokescreen of ambiguity about the January 6 Capitol riot. It can distance itself from the kind of paramilitary violence reminiscent of classical fascism. It's about time we called a spade a spade. Trump has the anti-democratic tendencies of a new autocrat — and, as his opponents point out, he seems likely to turn his words into action if he is re-elected.